China In The Family Of Nations

StLLT Oak Collkgks Publications No. 4..

CHINA IN THE
FAMILY of NATIONS

' SELLY OAK COLLEGES
CENTRAL COUNCIL PUBLICATIONS.

Edited for th<|"‘Selly Oak Colleges by
W. FEARON HALLIDAY,
WM. F. HARVEY,

JOHN C. KpYDD,
NATHANIEL MICKLEM,
HERBERT G. WOOD.

List of the Series

I.— GOD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
By R. I ,. Aytoum, M.A.

II.— TOM BRYAN: FIRST WARDEN
OF FIRCROFT. By H. G. Wood,
M.A., and A. E. Ball, B.A,

III. — CHRISTIANITY AND THE RE-

LIGIONS OF THE WORLD. By
Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Thcol., Dr. Med.,
Dr. Phil., of Strasbourg.

IV. — CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF

NATIONS. By Henry T. Hodgkin,
M.A., M.B., Secretary of the National
Chricltian Council of China.

fh* Central Council of the Selly Oak Colleget puhlishes ^mrks by in staffs in
old students and associates^ as it deems desirable^ nvithostt committing itself
to any opinions expressed.

CHINA IN JHE
FAMILY OF NATIONS

HENRY T. H0D(5KIN, M.A., M.B.

Secretary of*tht National Christian CounciUef China

UNDER HEAVEN THERE IS BUT ONE FAMILY

LONDON : GEORGL ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i

Fmi published in jg2$

[All rights reserved)

Printed in Great Britain hy

ONWfI| IIROTHKR8, UMITKD, THE ORKSHAM RROSS, LONDON^AND WOKlIfC

TO THE CHINESE STUDENTS ^tVHO HAVE STUDIED

OR ARE NOW STUDYING IN BRITAIN

• •

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY HELP
MY FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN TO UNDERSTAND
SOME OF THEIR FEELINgS AND ASPIRATIONS
AND SO TO

SEEK FOR A NATIONAL POLICY TOWARDS
CHINA, ANIMATED BY RESPECT,

THE SPIRIT OF FAIR PLAY AND INTELLIGENT SYMPATHY,

PREFACE

The problem of China is rightly claiming far more
attention from the English-speaking public to-day
than wfis the case five-and-tweilty years ago. During
that time I have been fairly continuously a student
of China and the* Chineser partly from a "‘distance,
but also during a residence of several years in the
far-western province of Szechwan, and especially
recently in extensive travel for nearly two years
in China, Japan and Korea.

In the following pages I have tried to do three
things : First, to give a brief su^rvey of the historical
setting necessary for an understanding of China’s
present relations with the West ; second, to explain
and estimate the various forces now working in
China, producing changes in the political, social,
indu^iftal and intellectual spheres ; and, third, to
supply a point of view which may help the reader
in further study or as he watches the unfolding
drama.

While I cannot escape the charge of looking at
these many questions with strong pro-Chinese
IsymprfCfiies, I claim to speak as one who has brought
to his task a critical judgment as well as a sincere
respect for the subjects of my study. China has too
often been treated as a land of mystery which iqtrigues
and ekides the observer. I seek to emphasize
rather the far more significant fact of our kinship,
our common human nature. In the Chinese I find
people who are quick to make contacts, appreciative

10 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

•

of kindness and sympathy, easy in their manners,
adaptable, honourable, full of gratitude and loyalty.
Among them I count some of my closest friends,
and I do not feel any racial barriers in our inter-
course. •

Yet China holds, in very truth, a deep mystery.
The wonder of China is that of a great nation^ pre-
serving its unique character ^nd its own soci^
structure for scores of ^generations, and to-day en-
tering into the broad stream of the world’s life to give
and to receive at a thousand points of contact.. What
new essence is to emerge from the mingling of these
different* elements ? Whither are we to be borne
as the river swells and overflows its banks ? In
the answer to such questions lies the deeper mystery
of China.

No writer on China dare claim to be a prophet.
All one can do is to state the facts, seeking to set
them in true propoi^ion and to estimate something
of their meaning. These, broadly speaking, are the
facts out of which the future must be shaped. We
who read and write are factors of no small import
in the shaping of the future, as I hope this volume
may make clear. ^

China is no dead or dying nation. Arrested her
development may have been for some centuries,
but I prefer to think of these centuries as the resting
stage during which she has been gathering strength
for new and greater tasks. Is Europe determined
to destroy herself by continued wars and dITftiities t
China, perchance, is yet to arise, not as the menace
we have dreaded, but as the prophet of peace and
reasonableness, whose voice will bo*^ heard across
the stormy waters summoning us to a kindlier and
saner life. *

Whether this be a vain dream or a realizable possi-
bility depends in no small measuse upon just such

PREFACE

II

persons as the readers of this volume, persons seriously
interested in the progress of humanity and alive
to the possibilities of the Far East. But it is not
so much our deliberate ill-will which is to be feared
as a means of turning China from the paths of peace.
It is our uninformed and nerveless goodwill which
may ,yet spoil the fair picture ; it is the greed of
gain which blinds m^n to the claims of righteousness,
it is the indifference born of contempt or even of mere
ignorance. To the removal of these things I would
direct my own energy, and in •that task I look for
many a colleague among the readers of this volume.

My thanks are ♦due to 'the authorities " at the
Selly Oak Colleges for inviting me to give the
lectures which form the basis of the following
chapters, to my friends Dr. T. T. Lew and
Dr. Phillippe de Vargas, of Peking, for suggestions
and information embodied in the chapter on the
New Thought Movement, and^, to various friends
and writers, too numerous to mention, whose ideas
have been freely used to correct or modify my own
experience and impressions. I cannot close this
preface without a word of deepest satisfaction in
the aiyjpuncement just made that Britain will hand
back to China the remainder of the Boxer indemnity.
No act could augur better for the future relations
of the two countries.

HENRY T, HODGKIN.

• Day, 1923.

CONTENTS

PAOB

PREFACE 9

CHAPTER

I. WHY DISCUSS CHINA ? . • . . . . , . 15

II. THE TREASURES OF THE PAST .... 23

III. EARLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS (BEFORE

1840) 37

IV. COMING INTO THE FAMILY (1^40-191 1) . . 56

V. THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 78

VI. JAPAN IN CHINA 100

vn. JAPAN IN CHINA {continued) . . . .118

vni. CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA .... 143

IX. jnaLE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA ... 171

X. THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT .... 197

XI. china’s iJIFT TO THE WORLD . . . j, 225

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . .* . . . . 253

INDEX 257

13

CHINA IN THE
FAMILY- OF. NATIONS

CHAPTER I

WHY DISCUSS CHINA ?

It is still unfortunately true that very many people
simply regard China as irrelevant. Discussion of
international questions may be carried on for hours
without a mention of China. ^Economic problems
are “ thrashed out ’’ as if there were no such country.
China is an interesting side-issue, a subject for
detached speculation much as we discuss the possible
inhabitants of Mars. This attitude of mind is found
not only among the ignorant and parochially-minded,
but also among persons of wide culture and interests.
It may be explained in part by the remoteness of
China, in part by her policy, through many genera-
tions, of “ splendid isolation,” and in part by the
difficulty of understanding her which is commonly
felt,fa7» Western minds. Whatever the explanation
the fact is regrettable. I hope it may be possible in
this volume so to put China and her problems into
the centre of the picture, not only to cure all my
readers* of this particular malady, but even to’make
them physicians for others whose eyesight is similarly
affected.

China and the^ Chinese are not simply a topic

16 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

C

of passing, if considerable, interest. Every nCw and
again something happens which forces even * the
newspaper-reader to think about China. For a few
days or weeks he realizes that there are infinite
possibilities of good or ill in that ancient land. Then
the crisis passes, and he turns his attention to a
boxing match or a divorce case. But China and
her people demand not a moment’s passing attention
but close and continuoiis study." Such study makes
some demands upon most of us whose minds are
more accustomed to think in terms of our own
civilization and problems. Happily, we now have
a considerable and varied literature in English
which deals with China. It is not very diflScult to
get the main facts. What is more difficult is to
enter upon the problem with real understanding.
In what I have to say I shall not attempt to recount
all the facts that are needed to form an estimate
of China’s position ip the family of nations. Sfy aim
is rather to give a point of view, a clue whereby
these facts may be understood and put into their
right place. In doing this I frankly confess myself
to be pro-Chinese in sympathy, to be a believer in
China’s future, and a lover of her people. At the
S9»me time I hope I may be able to present tlie situa-
tion in a fair way, and to avoid the danger of mis-
representing either those who differ from me, or those
nations which in the past have caused China to
suffer.

Let us begin by considering the factors ^ .the
situation which make the problems of China so
Important and relevant for Western students. It is
perhaps scarcely necessary to insist upon the mere
question of the size of China’s population, for bulk
alone does not give significance to a people any more
than to an individual. China has for many centuries
contained a very large population, ^t^pugli, if we

17

WHY DISCUSS CHINA ?

0

could trust the"' various estimates tiiat have been
made, it has undergone amazing fluctuations. There
has been as much as 60,000,000 difference in two
estimates made in the same year, and the poj)ulation
is supposed to have multiplied by nearly four in a
quarter of a century anti to have decreased from
60 to 21 millions in about eighty years (from 1680-
166SJ ! I think it fair to assume that there now
not fewer than 35(f,000,000 ^people living in Ohina
proper, but I doubt if an accurate census would
reveal a figure much in excess of that. It is also
probable that the rate of increase is very considerable.
I was given about 400,000*' a year as the ffgures of
Japanese increase and, if China be six or seven times
more populous, we may assume not less than 2,000,000
a year as her rate of growth, allowing for a much lar^r
death rate, which is very likely the case.

The first significant thing about these figures is
the uecessity of emigration imposed upon the
Chinese people, and the nature of the people thus
compelled. No doubt China, as all other countries,
can be so developed as to sustain a much larger
population if her industries are multiplied and her
resources tapped, her internal organization perfected,
her irrigation system improved and the area of
arable land increased. But these improvements are
not at present keeping pace with the growth of
population, with the result that a constant stream
of Chinese makes its way into the Straits Settle-
me^tir Borneo, Sumatra, the Philippines, and other
neighbouring lands and islands. Chinese are knocking
at the doors ©f Canada, America, Australia, and
other countries where the white population pre-
dominates, and only the fact of China’s political
and military impotence prevents this persistent
knocking from raising serious international problems.

Already t|ie development of neighbouring countries

2

18 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

has been and is being profoundly in^enced by
Chinese colonization. Twenty years ago"! was fold
that the leading doctor and the leading lawyer in
Singapore were Chinese by# race though British
by nationality. Chinese are showing their ability
to compete with Westerners in every walk of life.
They have a genius for colonization second only, even
if second, to that of the British, and far in advance
of the Japanese or any other Eastern race. They
can “ make do ’’ with the most unlikely things,
and get along on what would be starvation wages
to almost any other people. In a recent Japanese
investigation into conditions in* Moukden it was
found that two neighbouring shops, owned by a
Japanese and a Chinese respectively, were selling
the same article at very different prices. The former
seemed to be making no more than a fair profit,
but his neighbour was so greatly underselling him
that scarcely any custom came his way. Enquiry
revealed the fact that the Chinese sold retail at
the same price as he bought wholesale. His profit
was made from the fact that he had a few months*
credit with the manufacturer and that he was able
to make profitable use of the cases in which the
goods were delivered ! Needless to say he captured
the market, had a very large turnover and cut out
his Japanese competitor. Such cases could be multi-
plied all over the Orient, and when it comes to
competition with the Westerners, the shoe pinches
even more — for us ! ^ •

Some people still seem to think that behind an im-
mobile face and an unhurried manner the Chinese
merchant hides a lack of enterprise and initiative
which* will always leave him an easy* prey •to the
hustlers from the West. This is very far from the
truth. Chinese buyers have been handicapped in
the past in competing with foreign traders because

WHY DISCUSS china; 19

they have often not known the ropes or commanded
the credit as did their campetitdrs. But this disa-
bility is quickly passing. ThO Chinese compradore is
the most essential factor in the success of the firms
that do busines^in China. He is necessary for securing
orders in China and generally for pushing the
intei^sts of the concern locally. But the time is
lapidly coming when he will oust the foreign business
man, or at least seriously challenge his supremacy.
He has learned our side of the game more quickly
than we have learned his. He will be able to dispense
with his employer much more easily than his employer
can dispense with him. His enterprise and initiative
will then be manifest to the world, as they already
are to all who have had personal dealings with him.
If he can at the same time maintain the high standard
of business integrity for which he is famous and
secure the confidence of investors in China, there
will be a complete reversal of the economic positions
of foreigner and Chinese within a generation. Indeed,
it is no exaggeration to say that this process has
already begun and is proceeding rapidly. To think
of the Chinese as our inferiors, even in our own
game, is a very big mistake.

But the significance of China’s size is not only
to be seen when we consider her people as colonizers
and men of business enterprise. They are a nation
amazingly unified in life and thought, with a
tenacity of purpose and a quiet strength which
8*ee«ffi almost uncanny to us of the modern mind.
Some years before the Revolution which overthrew
the Manchu dynasty a friend of mine was travelling
in a remote part of China, and fell in with an ancient
scholaif who told him the following tale of the early
days of that dynasty. When the Manchus found
themselves in possession of the country by right
of conquest, they realized that they needed Chinese

20 CHINA, IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

to help them in governing it. They therefore called
certain leading Chinese statesmen to help them in
framing laws and constitution. One of these suggested
the plan that the Chinese should be the workers and
traders, and that the Manchus should be established
as the national guard, with a garrison in each large
town* He therefore proposed that they should draw
pensions for their services as defenders of the nation.
When challenged as toHhis proposal by his Chinese
friends, who considered that he had placed the
Manchu yoke in perpetuity upon the neck of the
Chinese and caused tl^e latter to support their
conquerbrs in power and idleness, he is reported
to have replied, Do not fear ; I have made this
plan in such a way that within three hundred years
our present conquerors will be destitute, begging
bread from door to door.” I cannot vouch for the
legend, but it bears the stamp of truth, and within
a few years of its recital to my friend the prophecy
was literally fulfilled. The Manchu dynasty lasted
from 1644-1911. One of the chief causes of its decay
was the idleness and luxury of the Manchus, and
their present desperate state is due to the fact that
for the most part they don’t know how to do an
honest day’s work.

It is with a people who can take long views, who
know how to wait, who have the patience to hold
on against all adversity, and who have a knack of
coming to the front again in time after every reverse
— ^t is with such people that we Westerners * have
to deal — we, the impatient, the short-sighted — so
keen on our quick-returns and our quack remedies.

Few foreigners in China can compare with Dr.
Arthur H. Smith in his profound and symj^athetic
understanding of Clunese character. He told me
how, when at a dinner in New York, a lady turned
to him and said, “ Dr. Smith, after all your knowledge

WHY DISCUSS CHINA ? 21

•

of China, what would you is the leading Chinese
characteristic ? “I do not know,’' he said,
“ that I have ever been asked exactly that question
before, but I think I 'should say it was reasonable-
ness/’ Turning to Mr. Rockhill, for many years
American minister in Peking, who was sitting on
her pther side, the lady repeated the remark and
§sked his opinion. Yes,” he said, ‘‘ after my lifein
China, though I might not Have put it in that way
myself, I believe Dr. Smith is right.” Going back
to China after the years of war and so-called peace,
wherein ihe madness of Europe had so fearfully
revealed itself, one could hot fail to be impressed
again with this characteristic. ‘‘ Li,” or reason,
right, the proper thing, is one of the great Chinese
words. To describe a thing as “ wu li ” without
reason, is to condemn it utterly. To say that a
certain course has li ” is to give it the highest
possible commendation. Time^and again the appeal
to reason and to humour works with a group of
Chinese where nothing else will, and where bullying
or domineering simply enrages your man and loses
your case for you. One morning travelling by chair
across Szechwan a snowstorm in the night induced
in my coolies a great desire for bed the next day,
I was told that they were on strike and had no
intentions of moving for twenty-four hours. I sent
them a polite message explaining that I had to
reach my destination at a certain time, and that
tf they chose to make several very strenuous forced
marches on the following days, I would be glad
to give them the day’s rest. Within an hour we
were on our way cheerful and laughing as we plunged
through the snow-covered fields, and we reached
our destination in time. I know what a different
story I should have had to tell had I tried threats^
Such a tale can^be told by every traveller in China

20 CHINA JN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

to help them in governing it. They therefore cajled
certain leading Chinese statesmen to help them in
framing laws and constitution. One of these suggested
the plan that the Chinese should be the workers and
traders, and that the Manchus should be established
as the national guard, with a garrison in each large
town. He therefore proposed that they should draw
pensions for their services as defenders of the nation.
When challenged as toHhis proposal by his Chinese
friendSj who considered that he had placed the
Manchu yoke in perpetuity upon the neck of the
Chinese and caused tlj^e latter to support their
conquerbrs in power and idleness, he is reported
to have replied, “ Do not fear ; I have made this
plan in such a way that within three hundred years
our present conquerors will be destitute, begging
bread from door to door/’ I cannot vouch for the
legend, but it bears the stamp of truth, and within
a few years of its recital to my friend the prophecy
was literally fulfilled. The Manchu dynasty lasted
from 1644-1911. One of the chief causes of its decay
was the idleness and luxury of the Manchus, and
their present desperate state is due to the fact that
for the most part they don’t know how to do an
honest day’s work.

It is with a people who can take long views, who
know how to wait, who have the patience to hold
on against all adversity, and who have a knack of
coming to the front again in time after every reverse
— :it is with such people that we Westerners"^ have
to deal — we, the impatient, the short-sighted — ^so
keen on our quick-returns and our quack remedies.

Few foreigners in China can compare with Dr.
Arthur H. Smith in ^ his profound and syinj^athetic
understanding of CHinese character. He told me
how, when at a dinner in New York, a lady turned
to him and said, Dr. Smith, after all your knowledge

WHY DISCUSS CHINA ? 21

•

of China, what would you s%y is the leading Chinese
characteristic ? ” “I do not know,’’ he said,
“ that I have ever been asked exactly that question
before, but I think I •'should say it was reasonable-
ness/’ Turning to Mr. Rockhill, for many years
American minister in Peking, who was sitting on
her pther side, the lady repeated the remark and
§sked his opinion. Yes,” he said, “ after my life in
China, though I might not have put it in that way
myself, I believe Dr. Smith is right.” Going back
to China after the years of war and so-called peace,
wherein ihe madness of Europe had so fearfully
revealed itself, one could hot fail to be impressed
again with this characteristic. “Li,” or reason,
right, the proper thing, is one of the great Chinese
words. To describe a thing as “ wu li ” withoiit
reason, is to condemn it utterly. To say that a
certain course has “ li ” is to give it the highest
possible commendation. Time^and again the appeal
to reason and to humour works with a group of
Chinese where nothing else will, and where bullying
or domineering simply enrages your man and loses
your case for you. One morning travelling by chair
across Szechwan a snowstorm in the night induced
in my coolies a great desire for bed the next day.
I was told that they were on strike and had no
intentions of moving for twenty-four hours. I sent
them a polite message explaining that I had to
reach my destination at a certain time, and that
tf iliey chose to make several very strenuous forced
marches on the following days, I would be glad
to give them the day’s rest. Within an hour we
were on our way cheerful and laughing as we plunged
through the snow-covered fields, and we reached
our destination in time. I know what a different
story I should have had to tell had I tried threats.
Such a tale can^be told by every tit^veller in China

22 CHINA ^IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

who has ever appealed to reason in dealing
the common man.

When to these outstanding qualities we add
industry and endurance far beyond the normal in
the West, adaptability learnt through generations
of living in close proximity in the patriarchal home-
stead, resourcefuj^ess that amounts to genius, a
peace-loving temper and a real rqverence for learnings
we have a combination of qualities that make the
mere size of China seem a small thing compared
with the vigour and possibilities of her citizens. It
is such a people whose mass is now but beginning
to be felt in the life of *the world. When Western
nations battered down the barriers that shut off
China from the rest of mankind in order that they
might open up her markets and draw revenue from
her wealth, they were bringing into the community
of nations a factor far more important than they
realized for the life gi the generations still unborn.
Commerce, transport facilities, interchange of ideas,
political relationships, are combining to increase
the influence of China in the world. It becomes a
matter of immense moment to consider what that
influence is and may become.

There is no element in the Great Society at once
so unknown and so hopeful for human progress
as China. Through many centuries she has matured
her thought and learned many lessons in the art
of living. She has been preserved, as it were, in
isolation or comparative isolation, and now
comes suddenly into an alien world desperately
needing some of the treasures she brings. Before
we enter upon the consideration of 4*^® conflict
of civilizations, let us take time to appreciate the
nature of this treasufe, or at least to see how we
may appreciate it.

CHAPTER II

THE TREASURES OP THE PAST.

Nothing could be more foolish than to imagine
that ofie could epitomize in one short chapter the
distinctive elements in a civilization achieved through
thousands of yeto, the ^product of many minds
and lives. What I can do, perhaps, is to give a few
indications of the kind of study needed to get into
the spirit of old China, to give a key that may unlock
some doors of the treasure-house.

It has been well said that ‘‘ people coming to
China vfith the idea that the# Chinese are a people
to be civilized can never hope to get beneath the
surface of things. They cannot see in Chinese culture
anything that possesses spiritual worth.’* Happily
this attitude of cultural superiority is beginning to
give way, but anyone who has lived in the Far East
knows that it is still very far from having disappeared.
Wherever it appears, in social intercourse, in com-
mercial or political life, or in missionary propaganda,
it is fatal to a true mutual understanding and there-
fore to any real solution of the race question. This
*a4fttude must be replaced by one of respect, by
humble and painstaking enquiry and by the effort
to sympathize with and understand a civilization
so very digerent from our own. Such respect must*
not be a mere washy sentiment ; it must be won
by each of us for himself as We discover those things
which call forth and deserve respect.

I would sugg€^^t in the first place a study of Chinese

88

24 CHINA JN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

art, and the crafts which arise out of it, including
the making of pottery, cloisonne, lacquers and rugs,
the type of architecture developed in China, the
carvings in ivory, jade and wood, the weaving of
tapestries, brocades and silks. TO stand before
some of the paintings that have come down to us
from the T’ang and Sung dynasties (618-907 .and
960-1127 A.D. respectively) is. to appreciate the
fact that the Chinese of those periods had a wonderful
sense of the beautiful, a great power of expressing
it, and an amazing appreciation of its significance.
It was Hsieh Ho who lived towards the end of the
fifth century (a.d.) who propounded the famous
canons of art :

“1. Rhythmic vitality ;

** 2. Organic structure ;

3. Conformity with nature ;

“ 4. Appropriate colouring ;

“ 5. Arrangement, tvhich means that one recognizes
the ever-living mission of painting to tell that nature
provides the experiences of the soul ; and

“ 6. Transmission of classic models.”

Over two hundred painters seem to have attained
to eminence during the T’ang dynasty, and many
of their works have come down to us. The land-
scapes of this period are full of life, and we also have
a number of portraits and studies. The Sung
paintings are perhaps more remarkable for their
simplicity and force, an idea revealed in a few tefiifig
strokes. The power of Chinese art lies in its feeling.
The artist was taught never to paint anything
unless he could, while doing so, exj^rience the
emotions proper to that subject. We can* enter
into these emotions as we study a Chinese master-
piece, almost feel the power of the hurricane as we
gaze on bamboos in the wind, or. enter into the

THE TREASURES OF THE .PAST 25

magical stillness of the autumn night as we look
at the picture of the moon shining on the waters
of the lake. The meij who made these things have
come down to us, in their warm affection for nature,^
in their subtle ^appreciation of beauty and humour.
They were the children of a civilization already
hoary with age before the Norman Conquest. They
kave bequeathed t© us something by which we
can, if we will, enter into their spirit, and, as it
were, touch their delicate and skilful hands. In
the study of Chinese art we can clearly see one
of the characteristics of Chinese civilization. To
the Greek, man w&s the centre of the picture, and
the noblest examples of his art are seen in the
presentation of the human form. To the Chinese,
man was as nothing in the midst of the wonderful
and beautiful universe he inhabits. A characteristic
Chinese painting will show two friends, it may be,
contemplating a beautiful sunset. The men are but
a suggestion that the sunset can be appreciated
by the mind and can enrich the friendship, but
the point of the picture is not in the figures ; it
is in the fact that the world of nature speaks a
language. The never-ending flow of the waterfall,
the piled masses of rugged rock, the perfect shapeli-
ness of the ancient tree, even the grotesque or absurd
in nature were a witness to a spirit, no less sure a
token than the driven leaves which tell us of the
power of the wind. Man is a very small item in the
lainlscape : but at least he has eyes with which
he may see and a heart which may beat with the
eternal purpose.

To breatfig! the spirit of ancient China we need
also t<5 come under the spell of her beautiful
buildings. The site is chosen* with a sure eye to

^ The collection in the old Winter Palace, Peking, ia especially^
notewor^y in this connection.

26 CHINA^IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

effect, the arrangement gives one a chance to t^^ke
in their characteristic features, and space is allowed
so that they have no sense of being suffocated by
surrounding buildings as is so often the case in
the West. The roofs of brilliant green or blue or gold,
with the glazed tiles reflecting the noonday sun,
with their corners turned up towards heaven,. with
the quaint ornamentation on roof-beam and gable*;
the giant pillars and mighty beams on which these
roofs are supported ; the marble steps leading up
to stately porches built regardless of any. niggard
economy of space — these are some of the things
that impress the foreigner and* make him realize
that this type of beauty has sprung out a life in
some very important respects different from that
which created our Gothic cathedrals or even the
Taj Mahal. If you see in architecture the expression
of what a people has achieved in thought and of
what are its hopes ^nd aspirations, you cannot fail
to recognize both that China has something of real
value and that it is something quite distinctive,
her own product which we need insight and sympathy
to understand and learn from. We cannot enter the
precincts of the Imperial City, where now are so
fittingly housed some of the finest specimens of
Chinese arts and crafts, nor can we visit some of the
ancient temples of China, without a sense of respect
and even reverence for those who have put them-
selves into this majesty and beauty.

It is impossible to dwell on other aspects of 4fie
art life of China. It is a world of its own, and I
invite you to enter it, sure that it will yield a rich
reward in itself, and also that it will pfove at least
the threshold to the understanding of this* people
whose destinies are Bound up with ours in the West
for good or ill.

( A second deep well from which we must draw

THE TREASURES OF THE .PAST 27

if are to enter into the spirit of old China is her
literature. It is unnecessary to insist that it can only
be fully appreciated ^ if read in the original, but
this is even more true of Chinese than of, say, Greek
or Latin literature. The Chinese language is a thing
apart. Its characters, each of which represents an
idea .rather than a word, baffle one by their number
and complexity. Yet in many of them a whole
world of meaning and allusion is bound up. What
they suggest to the ripe Chinese scholar no foreign
student may wholly understand. They are associated
with passages of beauty and nobility. There is
distilled into them* the fragrance of many •a pithy
saying of the sages. They scintillate like a distant
star whose light started on its voyage to your eye
some thousands of years before you were born.
The Chinese reverence the written word as no other
race. Scraps of paper with characters inscribed on
them must be preserved with care or destroyed
with decorum. Each character is like a living person,
aged and reverent, having a personality of its own.
It is in such characters that the thoughts of past
generations have been transmitted to us. Confucius
himself (born 550 or 551 b.c.) was a collector of
ancient learning, and disclaimed any idea of
originality. The wisdom of China seems to come
direct and almost unchanged from days when men
acted more on intuition than from thought-out
reasons. Yet it represents, without doubt, a world
of • hard- won experience condensed into telling
phrases. Like Chinese art, it leaves much to the
imagination. Three or four characters cannot be
adequately translated into less than a dozen words,
and ev5n then we often seem rather to be standing
on the brink of a thought than* bathing ourselves in
its depths.

In spite of thia difficulty of adequate translation,

28 CHINA, IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

it is well worth while to read the classics in English.
I would fiwivise reading such translations for oneself,
anil not relying too much on any interpretations of
their spirit by others. I shall have to come back
to some of the fundamental ideas of Chinese philo-
sophy in later lectures, but there are one or
two things I should like to say at once, somewhat
by way of introduction and caption. c

We need to be ver^' careful about reading into
Chinese writings purely Western ideas. Doing this
has resulted in an over-emphasis on certain aspects
of the classics and a failure to appreciate others.
Let me* take one examf)le. It is very often stated
that the teachings of the great sages contain
practically nothing on the spiritual side of man’s
nature, and are almost exclusively devoted to the
ethical. The saying of Confucius, “ We do not know
life ; how then can we know death ? ” is often quoted,
or that other remark about him in the Analects,
The subjects on which the master did not talk,
were prodigies, feats of strength, disorder, and
spiritual beings.” Yet, even the teachings of Con-
fucius are permeated by the sense of a divine
order which must be observed in human affairs.
That is to say, there is a reference of all life to some-
thing eternal to a standard of absolute value. He
says explicitly “ the life of the moral man is an
exemplification of the universal moral order. The
life of the vulgar person, on the other hand, is a
contradiction of the universal moral order.” Thbagh
there is recurring emphasis on moral precepts and
the outward life, there is a recognition of something
deeper, as where he says, “ The men of olden times
who studied virtue had only their inner development
in view ; those who tstudy it now have an eye to the
applause of others.” It is no outward idea of morality
that will satisfy this great moralist. Still more

THE TREASURES OF THE PAST 29

when we turn to Lao Tze or Meneius or to Meh Tze
do we get the idea of an inner life nourished l^y
relation to some deeper, springs, some abiding.principle
of goodness and love. While, therefore, this aspect
of life which wS call the spiritual or religious, the
sense of mystic communion with the divine Being, is
not expressed in the language with which we are
familiar, I cannot ^ myself doubt that the real
experience is there, and I 'believe a sympathetic
reading of the classics does not support the common
view that the best Chinese thought is sceptical in
regard to God. It is reverent and guarded. It
conveys its deepest* thoughts by hints rathbr than
explicitly. It will not venture to dogmatize. It
distrusts the blatantly supernatural, preferring to
see the true meaning of life in the normal rather
than in the abnormal. Not looking to any supreme
revelation of God in a Person, it has not clothed
God with personal attributes, but it has patiently
sought to understand the words that He has spoken
in the book of nature, in men’s relationships with
one another, and in the deepest recesses of the human
heart.

The second suggestion I have to make about reading
the Chinese classics is this — that we allow our
imagination full play. This must, of course, be guided
by a knowledge of historical setting and such study
of Chinese life as may be possible. But in many
of^the sayings of the sages we have not a treatise
buir a suggestion. The teachers of old China had
the same pedagogic instinct that is so wonderfully
exemplified in the teaching of Christ. He taught
in parables,»gave hints, which those only who had
ears could hear and those who had eyes see. there
is need of the same kind of insight if we are to see
the inner meaning of many of the words of the Chinese
sages. I used ta read the classics with a Chinese

80 CHINA.* IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

teacher, a man of rare simplicity of life who .had
never before been in touch with a Christian.
Repeatedly we discussed the ^differences and simi-
larities of The Great Learning and the Gospels.
Always he was concerned to shoW how Christian
truth had already been expressed in this volume
of concentrated wisdom, till one day when I fc>und
myself arguing for a reading ©f a certain passage
in conformity with "’Christian thought he said
in effect, “ Yes, it might mean that, but no com-
mentator has seen that meaning, and I dojibt if it
were really intended by^the writer/* Shortly after-
wards I visited his home and lie asked his little
boy to repeat to me the prayer that he had taught
him. It was a simple child’s prayer, but my atten-
tion was arrested by the following request, “ Grant
us the gift of Thy Holy Spirit to illuminate the
writings of Scripture and of the Chinese classics.**
We need to bring the same power of spiritual insight
and inspired imagination to the one as to the other,
I am not saying that they are of equal spiritual
worth, for with all my respect for the Chinese classics
I cannot find in them the wealth of spiritual truth
and the full revelation of God that I find in the
Bible, But we in the West who have so poorly
followed the one, have much to learn from the other,
and the right kind of study will bring rich rewards,
Chinese literature is not, of course, confined to
philosophy. Recent translations have enabled En^glis^h
readers to gain some idea of the beauty of Chinese
verse. Few realize the wealth of such literature in
China, It is on record that during the T’ang dynasty
no less than nine hundred volumes of ^loetry were
issued by various authors, and the total nuihber of
poems fell little short of fifty thousand ! Whatever
the literary merit of such a gigantic output may have
been, at least it suggests a considerable interest in

THE TKEASURES OF THE |PAST 81

p^tic composition and a certain reading public.
The poetry which has been preserved has a delicacy,
a reserve and a finei^^ss of feeling which give it a
high rank among the literary productions of the
world. It is unfortunate that it is so very difficult
to carry over its peculiar flavour and charm into
any other language.

History again takes a large place in Chinese
literature, though here I am afraid it must be
confessed that the bulk is more impressive than
the historical insight of the writers. There has been
but little’ attempt in China to interpret the meaning
of events, while thpe numbSr recorded is so huge
as to give the student a sense of being snowed under,
and unable to distinguish between the significant
and the insignificant. However, the patience and
attention to detail of the Chinese chroniclers is
beyond dispute. The raw materials have been
preserved for future use. ^

Leaving the more deliberate products of Chinese
thought, we may consider the structure of Chinese
society as a revelation of the genius of the nation.
It would be well to read books written before the
influences of the West had produced such marked
changes in the social organism. A volume like.
Dr. A. H. Smith’s Village Life in China introduces
one to a civilization expressed in many time-
honoured customs, in the large patriarchal family,
in the theatrical performance, in the customs of
thff:;market, in the secret society, and in the trade
guild. Here again we want eyes that we may see
the deeper significance of the facts. Chinese society
is very closely knit together, notwithstanding the
appearances * to the contrary, in recent fighting
and disputing. In the family hcfme, often according
to Clip ideas terribly overcrowded, you have several
generations living^ together and learning, as one

82 CHINi^ IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

follows another, the art of getting as much hapj^iness
out of life as is possible under unfavourable circum-
stances, and the still harder yt of living peaceably
Mth persons of different temperaments, ages and
interests, in a very close association. Of course,
there are plenty of quarrels in Chinese homes, as
there are all over the world, but the family holds
together notwithstanding, and in adversity ‘shows
a surprising sense of mutual responsibility and
coherence. In the trade guilds and in the provincial
guilds we have examples of democratic organization
and of co-operation of a peculiarly complete kind.
I shall^. have to refer to these in more detail when
we consider industrial questions, but I want chiefly
to point out here that the genius of the people can be
studied and appreciated in these forms of popular
voluntary association far more than in the State
^^organization. The political power in China has
^until recently been largely in the hands of the few,
ki^ome times enlightened sovereigns and sometimes
.tyrants or incompetent rascals. The real power
has been with the people. Mencius taught quite
explicitly the right of rebellion. “ The people are
the most important element in a country, and the
ruler is lightest,” was his maxim, to which he holds
tenaciously with all its consequences. He sees clearly
the need of differing functions in the body politic,
and argues cleverly and successfully against Hen
Hing, who pleaded in his day, somewhat as Gandhi is
pleading in India to-day, for a return to a siitg^ler
undifferentiated life where each would do his own
work. It is in the life of the people, in their relations
with one another and in the theory of society that
lies 'behind this that we discover the blue • to their

deepest thought. »

Everyone knows that Chinese social theory is
based upon the “ Five Relations.” In the Doctrine

THE TREASURES OF THE jPAST 88

of the Mean we have it stated in these words : The*
duties of universal obligation are five and the virtues
wherewith they are practised are three. The duties
are those between swereign and minister, between
father and son, between husband and wife, betwe^
elder brother and younger brother, and those
belonging to the intercourse of friends. Those five
are the duties of universal obligation. Knowledge,
magnanimity and energy, thege three are the virtues
universally binding. And the means by which they
carry the duties into practice is singleness.’’ It is
in the carrying out of the simplest duties in ordinary
human intercourse tjiat a man becomes qualified for
the highest responsibility. The supreme duty of
singleness of purpose is attainable by any man,
however humble. The genius of China may be said
to be the genius of the ordinary man, the worth-
whileness of the commonplace. Therefore, China is
not to be judged mainly by her sages, although
these men owe their pre-emin0nce largely to the
fact that they embody the characteristics of the
race and express them in fit language. Nor is it to be
judged by the feats of great generals or the reigns
of outstanding sovereigns. To touch the heart of
China we must understand the common people,
see how they live, hear the proverbs that pass from
lip to lip, study the village and clan life, enter the
family and the guild. This is no easy prescription.
Yet if we can in some measure follow it we shall
findL 4 ;iot that reverence for the art and literature of
China grows less, but rather that we gain a deeper
respect for the Chinese along with a truer under-
standing of the fine flowers of literature, philosophy
or art. «

I cannot close this considerajjion of the deeper
side of Chinese life without taking you with me to
the Altar of Heaven. As we stand there on that

84 CHINAj IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

simple marble platform open to the winds of healtren, •
we remember the impressive ceremony that% for
centuries was the one annu^ expression of the
nation’s unity in God, The/Emperor, as the Son
of Heaven, came on behalf of all the people, and
in their name, to make the one sacrifice to the
Supreme Ruler from whom all derive life and to
whom all must turn. Looking up into the* vast
dome of heaven with its myriad stars he offered
the homage of the millions of the Celestial Empire.
It was the simple expression of a primeval faith,
a relic of the monotheism which in practical life for
most Chinese has been supplanted by the worship
of the'^Gods of the Buddhist pantheon. To stand
on that altar, to uncover one’s head and silently
to absorb the meaning of that national act is to
find oneself lifted out of the petty and the personal,
and brought into relation to the mighty currents
that have swept down the ages from some dim
and unrecorded past, that have carried the countless
multitudes of China to their present place in the
life of the world. These currents are the blending
of a divine and age-long purpose with the many
wills of men and women who have been working
out in pain or joy their individual destinies and
shaping, though they knew it not, the destiny of
one of the greatest races of mankind, certain to
change in many ways the life and thought of all
other races just as she is herself being changed by
their life and thought to-day.

Our task in these pages will be to look at** one
little piece of this story where different currents
begin to mix and meet, where the interchange of
thought and customs is producing a now synthesis.
Creation comes tl^rough the meeting an& mixing
of different strains or persons. New civilizations
have been created in the past through such conjunc-

THE TREASURES OF THE PAST 85

tions. No one can say what the product of the
meeting of China a^d the West may be. It is, in
my view, the most interesting speculation in regard
to the future that can engage our thought. But it is
more than this. It is an issue that will mean more
than any of us can guess for good or ill for ourselves,
or, at' least, for our children. The more people there
^“are who can face this problem intelligently and
sympathetically and who will throw their weight
into the right handling of the many subsidiary prob-
lems involved, the better for humanity. I hope
that what I have^ writtei^ in this volume will
help to create many such persons. But no iAforma-
tion here given will avail much unless the reader
begins with real respect, and, at least, with the
honest attempt to understand China. That is a
step each must take for himself.

96 china! IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

CHABT

XD

Mow OUTSTANDING DATES

IN CHINESE

•i

HISTORY.

Dynasties.

1 Pbesons, BTO.

2356

Age of Yao and Shun

, .£200 B.o.

2205'

2000

^ Hsia Dynasty

1600

1766<

leoo

1400

Shang Dynasty

1200

1122<

1000

t

-

800

► Chou Dynasty

Lao Tze, 604 'I

600

Confucius, 561

^ Age of the Great

Meh Tze ,

Mencius, 372 ]

Philosophers.

400

249 ^

206 j

Seun King j

• Ch’in Dynasty

Ch'in Shih Hwang Ti (Emperor)

200

1

1

[

1 Mission of Chang Chien, 139

....

1 Han Dynasty

Introduction of

Buddhism, 65

200 A.D.

1

0*>l^

265^

^ Three Kingdoms

Toleration of Buddhism, 336

400

420^

^ Tsiu Dynasty

600

618^

^ Interregnum j

)

1

Nestorian Christianity, 634

800

907^

V T’ang Dynasty

Mohammedan influence begins
Persecution of Buddhists, 845

1000

960^

1

> Sung- Dynasty

Wang Nu Shih, 1070

1127^

Chu Hsi

1200

1275'

1368,

^ Yuen (Tartar) Dynasty

Kublai Khan, Marco Polo

1400

1

> Ming Dynasty

Jesuit influence begins

1600 .

1

j

1

•

1644^

y Ch’ing (Manchu) Dynasty

K’ang Hsi, 1661

Ch’ien Lung, 1735

1800

J

1

Protestant Missions begin

1911

Chinese Republic

1

Note. — T he above dates and persons are a selection chosen to make clear
the text. The left hand column is over simplified, jnany of the lesser Dynasties
being purixwely omit ed and the dates given are in several cases only approxi-
mate. Dates opposite a person give his birth (approximately) in the case of
a philosopher, the commencement of a reign in the case of an Emperor.

CHAPTER III

EARLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS
(BEFORE 1840)

I HAVE tried in the previous chapter to give some
picture of the Chinese and their ancient civilization
in order that the reader might realize as vividly as
possible the nature of the problems created by
the entrance of this great people into the Family
of Nations. I shall now trace the earlier connections
between China and the rest of the world so as to
supply some historical backgrouiad for our considera-
tion of China’s present relations with other states.

It is commonly supposed that China has, through-
out her long history, been cut off from intercourse with
the rest of the world, and, as a broad generalization
this statement is good enough. But it will be worth
while for our purpose to note the periods in Chinese
history when there was some degree of mutual
intercourse, what may be called, if you wish, the
^‘exceptions that prove the rule.”

Chinese history is generally regarded as beginning
" inHhe twenty-fourth century b.c. with the reigns
of the great Emperors Yao and Shun.^ This is
spoken of as the Golden Age of China, semi-mythical,
no doubt, but probably with some basis of fact.
These two emperors, who reigned in immediate
succession, have been chiefly admiied for their high

^ Others regard Fu Hsi (2852 b.c.) as at least semi-historioal.

88 CHINAlm THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

personal qualities, no doubt exaggerated by. the
praise bestowed on them by Ccmfucius and his dis-
ciples. Yao is reputed to haveTevised the calendar
and given it the form which has been used until
almost the present time. In his days w© are told
that there was such a degree- of security in the
country that men never locked the doors of ^their
houses! So far as is known,, there was no inter-
course with the West* in those far-off days. The
empire was probably confined to quite a small area
in the basin of the Yellow River, which seems to
have been the birth-place of Chinese civilization.

The ,more strictly Historical • records date from
the rise of the Chou dynasty (placed somewhere
between 1120 and 1050 b.c.), and from this period
onwards we have records for upwards of 3,000 years,
which can be regarded as fairly accurate, and in
many cases they are actually contemporary. During
the Chou dynasty, which lasted over 800 years,
the great philosophers of China flourished ; and
it was during this time that many of the political
and social customs were started which continued
almost unbroken till the foundation of the Republic
in 1911, or even still continue to the present day.

The student of international affairs may note,
in passing, that it was during this period (to be
exact in 546 b.o.), that we find the first authentic
record of a league of nations, in which no fewer than
fourteen states met together to enter into a covenant
to bring wars to an end. It is told of Hsiang
the originator of the scheme, that he moved in the
matter in order “ to stop the wars of the barons
and also to make a name for himself '' 1 The first
object failed lamentably ; as to the second, •! cannot
presume to decide. • The historian in giving a good
many pages to the account of the effort and the
ceremonies connected therewith, says, “ Chung-ni

EARLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS 89

- ^ ^

made me insert this ceremony because of the many
speeches for which it afforded the opportunity/^
The spirit in which the matter was taken up may
be judged by the action of the Prime Minister of the
leading state of Ch’in, who, when approached,
seems to have followed the advice of a colleague
who "said, “ War is a calamity for the people ; a
blight on all economical administration and a great
disaster for small states. Now, when a man comes
with a plan for stopping war, even though we may
think it can’t be done, we ought to let him try.
Besides, suppose you do not take the matter up,
well, then, Ch’u will. She will straightway call
the barons together, and thereby our position amongst
the lords as primus is gone.” When the day came
for signing the covenant of this ancient league,
the representatives of the state of Ch’u arrived,
wearing their armour under their ceremonial clothes ;
and so tense was the situation <hat the representa-
tives of Ch’in were only reassured by the recollection
that they were next to the city gate, and if attacked
could readily escape within the city walls !

The speech of Hsiang Hsu is the one that seems
most worthy of being preserved, for when the mutual
suspicion was brought to his notice, and especially
the concealed armour, he remarked, “ No harm
can come to us from such a thing as this. Even
a common peasant cannot get along without trusting
and, being trusted. The outcome is death. Nothing
calf be gained by lack of trust at a meeting of the
barons. I have never been troubled at any notion
that men could ‘ eat their words ’ and not suffer
for doing so. We come together because we trust
each other. One of us shows he is not fit to be
trusted. Well, that hurts him,* not me.” If our
sentiments have not advanced very greatly since
those days, nearly 2500 years ago, let us hope

m CHINA IN THE FAMILY OiF NATIONS

that our achievements may, and that Greneva may
prove a stronger bulwark to p^ace than did the
covenant that was signed at Sung in the year
546 B.o. The incident is chiefly interesting as
showing that there were some people in ancient
China who tried to put their peace principles into
practice at a time when the whole country ' was
distracted by war. ,

Passing over three centuries during which the
great Chinese philosophers flourished, we may pause
a moment to think of Ch’in Shih Hwang Ti, the
builder of the Great Wall of China and founder of the
Ch’in dynasty b.o. 221. This Emperor combined the
petty states into which China had broken up with
the decay of the Chou dynasty, and abolished the
feudal system which he regarded as a chief source
of China’s weakness and internal dissensions. He
was bitterly opposed by the literati, who could
quote endless passages from the classics in support
of the status quo. The Emperor determined to put
an end to such nonsense, and the result is that his
name has been handed down to posterity as the
arch- vandal who destroyed the classical records.
All books except works on agriculture, medicine
and divination had to be brought to the nearest
official and burnt. As a matter of fact, public
libraries and official records were excluded from
the decree, and it is probable that no great
loss was suffered. It may well have been terribly
irritating to a vigorous reformer to have anciSht
writings perpetually quoted against him, and I,
for one, am not disposed to blame him nearly as
much as the historians, who, naturally enough,
took the part of the literati against the ijmperor.
Unfortunately, when he found the burning of the
classics ineffective as a means of closing the mouths
of these reactionary pedants, he •proceeded a step

EARLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS 41

further and caused 460 of them to be buried alive.
This act we need not seek to excuse ! The Great
Wall was built in order to keep out the invasions
from the north by the Hsiang-nu, who seem to
have belonged to some stock of the Huns, and it
has stood in subsequent generations as a parable
to show China’s attitude towards other nations.
This also is hardly fair to the Emperor Ch’in Shih or
to China generally, for there is no doubt that these
northern invaders were far less civilized than the
Chinese gf that day, and were a real menace extremely
hard to deal with. .

It is of especial* interest that during this epoch
the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Seun King
were largely accepted in preference to those of
Confucius and Mencius. This sage held that all
men were by nature bad, and that peace could only
be achieved through fear. Ch’in Shih Hwang Ti, in
following his teaching, carried tut many very severe
sentences on his subjects. A picture of the court
of that day shows a man kneeling before the
Emperor, and two executioners standing at the
side evidently waiting their chance as soon as the
petitioner has finished ! Chin Shih Hwang Ti believed
that he could found a dynasty that would rule for
ever, that history was to begin anew with himself,
and that by violence and domineering he could
secure peace. He did for a brief period establish
his rule over all the smaller states, but his dynasty
lasted less than fifty years, the shortest on record,
and the judgment of China upon him is that his
method was a signal failure. One thing has lasted
from the dynasty — ^the name China — which is probably
probabfy derived from the word Ch’in.

The earliest authentic record of foreign influence
in China dates roughly from the beginning of our
era, when Buddhism was first introduced. About

42 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OOF NATIONS

one hundred years earlier a mission was sent West
by the Emperor Wu Ti (of the 'Han dynasty, b.o.
140-87), and news was obtained of the powerful
nation known to the Chinese as Yiieh Ti, who then
inhabited the area now known as Bokhara. Chinese
products were being sold there as Indian goods,
having arrived from that direction. This mission
accomplished little in the way ^f opening up trade
as the two peoples were still separated by the
barbarous Hsiang-nu.

The date b.c. 6 is given for the first translations
of Buddhist writings in^o Chinese, but it was not
until A.D. 65 that Buddhism was introduced into
China in any large way. It is said that the Emperor
Ming Ti had a dream in which he saw a giant
who bade him send messengers to the West. The
messengers were sent, and returned with two Buddhist
priests from India. One can speculate as to what
might have been the course of history had they
proceeded still further West and come back with
two of the apostles of Christ !

The form of Buddhism introduced into China
was what is known as northern Buddhism in marked
distinction to the southern Buddhism practised
in Ceylon. While the new faith was born in another
country, and had all the disadvantages of being a
foreign one, opposed in certain particulars to Chinese
ideas, it became in course of time strongly infiltrated
with these ideas, and is now not less influential
among the common people in China than the indi-
genous religions. After its first introduction, Bud-
dhism suffered a severe reverse amounting almost
to an eclipse, but by 335 a.d. the new rjigion had
gained such hold that the ruling emperor issued
a decree of complete religious toleration, allowing
Chinese for the first time to enter the Buddhist
priesthood. Chinese pilgrims travelled frequently

EAtaLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS 48

to India, and a succession of Indian monks, some
of whom had groat influence, came into China.
Most of the Buddhist books are translations of Indian
sHtras, In the year 845 the Taoists succeeded in
bringing about a terrible persecution of the Buddhists,
when 4,600 monasteries were destroyed and
260,000 monks and nuns were driven into civil
life. This is one cf the very few instances of religious
persecution in Chinese history, and may be com-
pared to the Boxer uprising in 1900-1. The effort
in each case was short-lived and followed by a
reaction: There can be no doubt that the religious
fellowship established bettv^een India and China
was one of the chief, if not the chief, means of
opening up intercourse between China and the outside
world until about a century ago. I believe that
Buddhism owes its success in China to the fact
that Chinese philosophies have been so negative
and reserved in regard to spiritual realities, and
that there is something in the Chinese, as well as
in all other peoples, that seeks for communion with
God, Ancestor worship cannot take the place of the
worship of the Supreme Being. Buddhism in China
has supplied, especially in the worship of Kwang Yin
(the Goddess of Mercy), something which answers
the craving of the human heart for an assurance
of response from the unseen world.^

Be that as it may, what we are now considering
is rather the effect of the intercourse with India
^ade possible through the Buddhist incursion.
It can be shown that Indian ideas influenced in
many ways the architecture, arithmetic, literature,
and music of China, besides other branches of art
and scienCTe. In part, this influence was transitory.

'It hM also been maintained that Buddhism was adopted partly
for {wlitiool reasons, especially because it gives a religious sanction
to the idea of retribution, an idea opposed by the Confucian
scholars.

44 CHINA IN THE FAMIEY OF NATIOlJS

•tv

For example, the Chinese ^lyllabary, introduced by
Indians in order to facilitate thexT work of transla-
tion, is now only preserved in Chinese dictionaries,
although for some time it was very generally used.^
The same is true of the literary style which was
then introduced, was all the fashion for several
centuries, and then fell into disuetude.

In these particulars, then, we may say that the
influence of India was <for a time a very important
fact in the life of China. Its permanent mark on
Chinese thought and social life has been much less
than might have been expected. China h&B a way
of reasserting herself. She comes back to the Tao,
her own inner nature, even though slowly — a fact
to be borne in mind in considering her future in the
light of present events.

To what extent did Grseco-Roman civilization
affect China in these early days ? There is evidence
of trade in silk with Greece, and the Roman Empire
was known to the Chinese in the second century a.d.
as Ta Chin, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius having
apparently sent envoys to Cochin China to open
up trade. It is probable that some Greek influences
reached China through India. Again in the seventh
century the Emperor Theodosius sent an ambassador
to the Chinese court. There is no evidence that
this intercourse had any deep influence on China.
One may say broadly that the Graeco-Roman culture
which has so largely shaped our modern European
world had no share in the formative forces which haye
combined to make China what she is to-day.

The one notable exception to this is the influence
of early Christian missions. The first introduction
of the Christian faith seems to have been By a Syrian

^ The modem phonetic script is a new thing and cannot be
spoken of as a revival of the old idea of a syllabary introduced
by Buddhist monks.

EARLY WERNATIONA^^ CONNECTIONS 45

monk named 01o^an diiring the reign of the most
illustrious monarch of the T’ang dynasty T’ai T’sung
(not to be confounded with the first Manchu
Emperor of the same name). This was in the year
634. Much favour was shown to him and he was
permitted to build churches. The only record we have
of this introduction of Christianity is the famous
Nestorian tablet (discovered in 1623). There can
be no question of its authenticity, and the record
certainly suggests a fairly widespread adoption of
the Christian faith. History is silent as to the reasons
which led to the decline and final extinction of
Nestorian Christiaifity. The tablet was engraved
nearly 150 years after the arrival of Olopan, and
at that time there must have been a number of
flourishing churches. It is to be hoped that some
day materials may be discovered which will help
to solve what is at present a curious mystery.

To religious enthusiasm, in tfee first place, is also
due another movement that has affected the life
of China. In the early days of the Muslim faith
China was marked out as a land to be won. About
the end of the seventh century there seems to have
been an attempt to reach China with a military
expedition in the interests of Islam, but this failed.
Through commercial approaches in the south the
new faith began to influence Canton ; but little
progress seems to have been made during the T'ang
dynasty. It was not until the beginning of the
■Wth century that, during the Mongol dynasty,
there was a large influx of Arab traders who brought
their religion with them. While Mohammedanism
has taken^hold of a considerable number of the
Chinese people, and is specially strong in certain
provinces, notably in Kansu, I do not think that
it can be said to have exerted any very considerable
influence upon Chinese thought or customs.

46 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

It may be well before passim on to the later
periods to remind ourselves oi the place which
China held at the time of the T’ang dynasty (618-
807 A.D.)‘ By the Chinese generalljr this period is
regarded as one of unique splendour and success.
China was for three hundred years under purely
Chinese rulers. On the whole, they were enlightened
and far-seeing men. Their rule was extended to
Korea in the north and to Canton in the south,
and even Persia sought help from China. It has
been suggested that the country then became an
asylum for peoples who^ were elsewhere being perse-
cuted for their faith, and tlTat some of these
brought with them arts and crafts hitherto unknown
to the Chinese. Mr. Wells Williams says that China
during the T’ang period was ‘‘ probably the most
civilized country on earth ; the darkest days of
the West, when Europe was wrapped in the ignorance
and degradation oft the Middle Ages, formed the
brightest era of the East.”

About the time of the Norman Conquest, China,
having passed through a period of complete dis-
organization, when she was overrun by hordes of
barbarians, was reduced to the old expedient of
buying off her enemies by huge gifts amounting
to as much as an annual “ present ” of 250,000
ounces of silver, 250,000 pieces of silk and 250,000
catties of tea. It is small wonder that the country
was reduced to the verge of bankruptcy. From
this she was saved by the energy and statesmanslufT
of Wang An Shih, who is sometimes spoken of as
the pioneer of State Socialism. This description
is not very accurate, for his reforms reallj' depended
upon a strong central government, and wShe carried
out against the persistent opposition of many of
the people. They included a system of State loans
to farmers, income tax to take the place of the

EARLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS 47

•older corvee, and nationalization of commerce. A
militia Act was a^so introduced calling for every
family with more than two males to supply one
in time of war for the army and one in time of peace
for the police Jforce. Wang’s enemies used the
appearance of a comet, which was attributed to
his reforming zeal, as a means of displacing him.
But when the comet disappeared without doing
any serious damage, *the Emperor, who had always
trusted him, was able to reinstate him in office !

The modern history of China is regarded as
commencing with the Mongol dynasty under Kublai
Khan. It is difficult to give an exact date for the
commencement of the Mongol supremacy in China,
as during a number of years the Mongols were
engaged in the gradual subjugation of the various
states into which what is now China proper was
then divided. The Mongols, though far inferior
in culture to the Chinese, were at this time a people
with a written language and with a sufficient
appreciation of art and literature to seek to preserve
it. It has been said of Kublai that he conquered
China only in turn to be conquered by it. Trade
with the West was extensive during his reign, and
he introduced on a large scale a paper currency,
based first upon silk, then upon silver, and finally
upon copper. The depreciation of this currency
was one of the causes of the downfall of the dynasty.
During this period the novel and the drama were
introduced into China, where they have since had
lE^reat vogue. This is perhaps the most considerable
gift that came to China from the outside during
the Mongol regime, and it seems to have come from
the Tartafsurather than from the Mongols themselves.

It may be well here to speak briefly of the early
relations between China and Japan. We must go
back to the reign of Ch’in Shih Hwang Ti for our first

48 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

reference to the sister nation. It is recorded that
he sent out several expeditionii into the Yellow
Sea to discover an island supposed to be the home
of the genii. One of these, headed by a certain
Hsii Fu, contained, we are told,, 500 boys and
, 500 girls and many valuable books. They set sail
from Chefoo and never returned. It is supposed
that he introduced Chinese civilization into Japan !
Coming down to more reliable records, we find
the T’ang Emperor T’ai T’sung equipping an expedi-
tion to Korea in answer to their request for deliver-
ance from Japanese domination, the latter Power
having linked themselves wit^ one side in an
internal quarrel. The expedition, after some minor
successes, had to retreat in 645 a.d., this being,
I suppose, the first time that Japan and China came
to blows in regard to Korea. The intercourse between
the two countries was not, however, confined to
conflict, and during the T’ang dynasty many Japanese
came over as students to China. It was then that
Chinese arts and civilization came to have a
dominating influence in the development of Japan.

The military ambition of Kublai Khan was stirred
by accounts of Japanese wealth, and he made various
efforts to secure their allegiance. The final attempt
reminds one of nothing so much as the efforts of
Philip of Spain to subdue another island people
on the Western shores of Europe. In 1281 a fleet
of 4,500 ships sailed from the ports of Fukien for
Japan. Stubborn resistance and finally a terrific
storm completed their discomfiture, and very fd^
returned to tell the tale.

During the Ming dynasty there were further
encounters with Japan, both in Korea andLjji Central
China. Japanese traders and pirates were continually
trying to enter Ningpo and other ports, and, on
the whole, they seem to have been successful in

EAELY INTESNATIONAL CONNECnOKS 40

the military operations they undertook. But no
permanent foothoid was obtained in either place,
and Japan had to content herself, at that time,
in consolidating her own power, and giving up her
continental a^itions. In the light of recent
happenings it is well to remember these episodes
which brought no permanent gain to either country
and meant much loss to Korea and to the peoples
of the coast provinces.

The Ming dynasty was also notable for inter-
course with Western nations. In 1516 the first vessel
flying a European flag in these waters arrived
at Canton. It was J^ortugu^e, and was favourably
received and some trade was opened up. Three
Portuguese settlements were established, but the
treatment of the Chinese by the settlers was such
that the Chinese determined to drive them out,
and succeeded everywhere except in Macao, which
is still held by Portugal. Spain followed suit, and
seized the Philippine Islands irf 1543. Their cruel
treatment of the Chinese in trading with them,
and also the terrible massacre of Chinese residents
in Manila, was so much resented that they were not
permitted to settle on the mainland. In 1622 the
Dutch made an attempt to seize Amoy, but were
driven out and compelled to retire to Formosa.
Thus trade with the West, commenced with violence
and bloodshed, was naturally distrusted by China.
She did not want our merchandise at that price,
^d small wonder ! Europe had commenced the
j^icy of commercial aggression, and in the first
encounters she had been worsted. But the inven-
tions of James Watt, and Arkwright, and Maxim, and
a host of^thers, were yet to make it possible, for
Europe to reverse the decision. How little the
pioneers of applied science knew what their labours
would mean for the relations of East and West,

4

50 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

and how they would be misused py their aggressive
kinsmen ! It may be of interest^ in this connection
to note that one of the gifts brought to China by
the Jesuit missionaries who arrived there during the
Ming dynasty (reign of Wan Li, 157i3-~1619) was the
manufacture of certain types of firearms. Their
success at this period seems to have been largely
due to their scientific knowledge, and it is recorded
that before the fall of the Ming dynasty no fewer
than 114 members of the royal family were
Christians.

The last of the great dynasties of Chinese history
was ag|iin a foreign oiie. The Manchus attacked
China at a time when the Mings had become de-
generate and unworthy of high office. The palace
was filled with self-seeking office-bearers ; the
Manchu hosts met with comparatively little opposi-
tion and found many traitors ready enough to sell
their country. Again we have the phenomenon of
a foreign occupation ; but the Manchus differed
from the Mongols in their readiness to use Chinese
in many of the chief positions of responsibility.
Their government of China contains some of the
most illustrious names in Chinese history, notably
the two great Emperors K'ang Hsi and Ch’ien Lung.
As I am only trying to epitomize China’s relations
with foreign Powers, it is impossible to expatiate
on the reigns of these great emperors. It is not
without significance that two of the emperors most
warmly praised by Chinese historians should
been aliens, being another indication of the fair-
mindedness of the Chinese and their lack of
unreasoning prejudice against foreigners.

It was during the reign of K’ang Hsi (4p661-1722)
that Russia first came into prominence as a force
to be reckoned with in Chinese politics. Shortly
before his accession a Russian embassy had arrived

early international connections 51

'in Peking to opiun up trade. Their goods were
accepted as tribute from an inferior State, and the
Emperor returned a present to show his pleasure
at the loyalty of the Russians.

In 1670 China sent a mission to Moscow, but
language difficulties prevented its achieving any
result. A Russian mission accompanied the Chinese
one when it returned, -and tried to reach an agreement
on frontiers and trade relations. No agreement
was reached, and ultimately war broke out and
was waged intermittently from 1682-1686, when
K’ang Hsi asked the Dutch tp act as intermediaries ;
but a peace was ndt concluded until 1689 through
the help of Jesuit missionaries. For the first, but
by no means for the last time, a treaty was concluded
between a European State and China in which the
texts in the two languages were far from identical.
One result of this treaty was the opening up of a
fairly steady trade. The happy relations between
Peter the Great and K’ang Hsi do credit to both
monarchs. It is an interesting fact that an English
traveller, named Bell, accompanied the mission
sent by the former to the latter in 1719. It may
be said that broadly the relations of the two countries
continued to be friendly until the period of general
aggression by foreign powers, although they were
on the verge of war in 1881 over disputes as to
concessions in Manchuria.

' In 1685 K’ang Hsi issued an edict opening all
the ports of China to foreign trade, but this permis-
sion only lasted until 1757, after which date Canton
alone was open to such trade. The interval saw a
considerable development of trade in the South.
Prior to tliis, England had made several efforts to
develop trade relations with China, mainly through
the East India Company, which established a factory
at Amoy and another at Canton. The first attempt

52 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

seems to have been an expedition which went out
with a letter from Queen Elizabeth to the Emperor
in 1696. The ship was wrecked and all hands were
lost. It was, however, in the reign of Ch’ien Lung
(the other really great Manchu Emperor, 1736*-
1796) that Britain succeeded in presenting her
demands at Peking. The famous embassy from
George III to Ch’ien L^ng, under the leadership of
Lord Macartney, received a courteous hearing, but
the Emperor again took the view that the presents
brought by the mission were of the nature of tribute.
The proposals brought by Lord Macartney were
for the ‘appointment of a British* trade representative
at Peking, and for facilities for trading at certain
Chinese ports which were at that time closed. The
reply has been preserved, and is a masterpiece of
dignity and firmness. One by one the requests
are dealt with, and George III is addressed as though
he were an ignorant child to be quietly shown his
errors and presumption. After arguing that an
embassy in Peking would serve no useful purpose
in regard to trade, the reply continues : —

** If you assert that your reverence for our Celestial
dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our
civilization — our ceremonies and laws differ so com-
pletely from your own that, even if your envoy
were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilization,
you could not possibly transport our manners and
customs to your alien soil. Therefore, however
adept the envoy might become, nothing would be
gained thereby. ... As your ambassador can
see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value
on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use
for * your country’s manufactures. This, then, is
my answer to your request to appoint a representa-
tive at my court, a request contrary to our dynastic
usage which would only result in inconvenience to

EARLY INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS 58

'youtself, I have expounded my wishes in detail
and have commanded your tribute envoys to leave
in peace on their homeward journey. It behoves
you, 0 King, to respect my sentiments and to display
even greater deVotion and loyalty in future, so that
by perpetual submission to one throne, you may
secure peace and prosperity for your country
hereafter.”

In a second message the Emperor makes excuses
for King George’s ignorance. “ I do not forget,”
he says, “ the lonely remoteness of your island,
cut off from the world bjr intervening wastes of
sea, nor do I overlbok your excusable ignorance of
the usages of our Celestial Empire. I have conse-
quently commanded my ministers to enlighten
your ambassador on the subject, and have ordered
the departure of the mission.” ^

Bertrand Russell, after quoting parts of this
reply, says with some truth,^“What I want to
suggest is that no one understands China until
this document has ceased to seem absurd.” ^ A
Chinese historian, however, commenting on the
incident, says, “ it had a good deal to do with the
natural vanity of China. It confirmed the belief
of the Chinese scholars that their Emperor was the
universal sovereign. For this self-conceit China has
paid dearly ever since.”®

This brings us down to the early part of last
century, and the beginning of a period of conflict
between China and the Western Powers. Before
attempting to trace this recent history and to show
its bearings on the present position, let me attempt
to draw a few general conclusions from the long
and curious history we have glanced at in this chapter.

^ See ArmaXs of Memoirs of the Court of Peking^ pp. 320 ff.

* The Problem of China, p. 61.

• OuUirhes of Chinese History, p. 464.

54 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

The relations of China with o^her peoples seem
to have been mainly along three lines — ^religious,
military and commercial. In the matter of religion
and culture China has shown herself tolerant, with
a few exceptions, willing to receive* new ideas and
able to assimilate them. Having a well-thought-out
system of her own, she has not been easily turned
from her own way, and even Buddhism, which
had more influence on Chinese life than any other
outside religion, took many centuries to gain a
really firm hold and was deeply modified in the
process. Only once or twice, so far as I know, was
there jyiything that could be •called persecution,
though there was strong opposition at other periods.

In the matter of war China has not always been
able to resist outside aggression. She has never,
under her own rulers, been really aggressive.^
During the Mongol and Manchu dynasties alone
have there been any ^considerable attempts at foreign
conquests. The interesting thing is that China has
been very little influenced in her inner life and in
her social structure by these military invasions,
or by the dominance of foreign rulers. Her own inner
strength is scarcely to be seen anywhere more clearly
than in the way in which she has conquered her
conquerors.

In the matter of commerce, up to the period we
have now reached, there is not much to say. China
did not in the main seek foreign commerce ; it
was thrust upon her. She has not been altogether
unwilling to trade with other nations, but during
these many centuries she evidently felt that little
was to be gained by such trade. The effect of
attempting to force foreign trade upon China without
any real understanding of her customs and methods

* The conquests of the T’angs were mainly by way of consoli*
dating kindr^ peoples.

EARLY INTEtNATlONAL CONNECTIONS 55

had, even before 1840, produced a good deal of
resentment and friction. We shall see in the next
chapter how this has developed, and how these
three methods of intercourse have become mingled
and inter-related, while the whole process has been
immeasurably accelerated.

CHAPTER IV

<

COMING INTO THE FAMILY (1840-1911)

We have now to turn our attention to the processes
by which China has bee^i drawn .into close relations
with th6 other nations of the world. It is a long
and not a very edifying story reflecting little credit
on any of the parties concerned. It is clearly
impossible to trace it in detail. It will not, however,
be difficult to give the broad outline, and see some
of the main currents that are sweeping China not
merely out of the ^dy in which she had rocked
with comparative safety for generations, but into
the mid-stream of events where many forces contend,
as it were, for her very life.

We have already seen how China’s relations with
other nations could be classified as the religious
and cultural, the military and the economic. Although
these three lines intersected in the long years prior
to 1840, one can fairly easily disentangle them.
In the period we now consider they become inextric-
ably interwoven. Nevertheless, as a determinant of
outward events, the economic is unquestionably
the most important. As we proceed, however, we
shall see the immense importance, of the religious
and cultural aspect of China’s relationship with
the West. Possibly to most people it is the third
, military aspect which is most prominently in mind
when they think about the future relations of East
and West. This is due to an unfortunate idea that

M

COMING INTO THE FAMILY (1840-1911) 57

the East is a potential menace to the West, and
must be viewed in that light.

We have seen that China did not want our trade.
This was due ip the first place to a deep-seated
conviction that foreign imports must mean the
export of silver, and therefore the impoverishment
of the country. While China is a very large user
of silver, and has bfeen for many generations, she
never has produced any large quantity. Apparently
Chinese economists had no confidence that China
could produce, in silk, tea or other produce, enough
to provide exchange with any large influx of foreign
goods, and indeed* the increase of foreign trade
has induced one or two silver famines in China.
Nevertheless, China’s own production has been
immensely stimulated by intercourse with other
nations, and fears about the export of silver have
not, on the whole, been realized.

Another more important eieisient in the situation
was China’s sense of self-sufficiency and superiority.
She had to learn some very bitter lessons before
she was willing to treat with other States on equal
terms. We saw how presents sent from abroad
were accepted as tribute ; when Lord Macartney’s
mission travelled to Tientsin, a Chinese flag was
flying upon the vessel that conveyed him with the
inscription, “A tribute bearer from the country
of England.”

But China had some truer reasons to fear the
foreigner. The early intercourse in the South was
marked by cruelty and high-handedness, and the rep-
resentatives of foreign nations had shown a marked
ignorance of Chinese customs and thought. It was
this failure in mutual understanding which, more
than anything else, precipitated the first war with
Britain in 1840-42.

The story of this war and the succeeding one in

$8 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

»

1856-60 has often been written, and there is no
need to retell it in detail. One may note, in passing,
that while the wars have been called the opium
wars, and while the importation of opium was
legalized by the treaty that concluded the second
one, the issue was really a much wider one. With
the elements in the situation a clash on some point
was inevitable sooner qr later. * Opium was, indeed,
the principal, though not the only article being
imported by the British merchants. It was excluded
by China not simply on moral and social grounds,
but also because of the^r conviction that its import
was exhausting the silver of the* country, and, as a
matter of fact, the local merchants and officials
had for years been winking at the trade and making
large profits from it. On the other hand, the Peking
Government appointed, in Commissioner Liu, a
man who was genuinely alarmed by the trade and
determined to do ajl in his power to stop it for
the sake of his countrymen. The British authorities
determined to defend a traffic which, after many
days, the House of Commons declared to be morally
indefensible. They only surrendered the 20,000 cases
of opium because they had no force adequate to
resist the demand. Although, technically, this
seizure was not the casus belli, there can be no doubt
that it had a very large share among the several
factors that ended in open rupture. While the
matter was being referred to London for action
a relatively trivial incident precipitated the crisis,
a Chinese having been killed in a drunken brawl
by some British sailors, and the British Consul
refusing to hand over the culprit to the Chinese
law courts.

The inwardness of the struggle is seen when we
think of the wide gulf which separated a government
inspired by conservatism, prejudice and pride on

COMING INTO THE FAMILY ( 184 ^ 1911 ) 59

ihe one hand, and on the other the representatives
of a nation trading in all parts of the world, proud
also of its position and achievements, and intolerant
of what seemed^ like needless and stupid limitations
to trade. England’s demand was to be treated
on equal terms ; China saw no reason to comply
with such an outlandish request. If the opium
chests had not been destroyed, and if the Chinese
had not been murdered, can anyone think that
a war would have been averted ? The fuel was
piled up and ready for the spark.

The Treaty of Nanking, which concluded the first
war, established e5tra - territorial rights, provided
for the opening of five Chinese ports to foreign trade
(Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai),
for the cession of Hong Kong to Great Britain, and
for a large indemnity covering the value of the
opium destroyed and the losses suffered by British
subjects. It did not settle the question of the legality
of the opium traffic.

It was said by the first British envoy to Peking
that “ in a country like China the conclusion of a
treaty is the commencement, not the termination,
of difficulties,”^ and there is, unfortunately, too
much truth in the aphorism. While the treaty
led to free trade not only with Britain, but with
other foreign nations, who shortly concluded similar
treaties, it also led to many new difficulties, more
particularly as the Chinese felt, naturally enough,
that a treaty exacted at the point of the sword
lacked any moral sanction.

In 1843, unfortunately, affairs were complicated
by the intersection of our first line, namely, the
religious. Three missionaries were attacked by a
crowd near Shanghai and nearly lost their lives,

* Recent Events and Present Policies in China, J. O. P. Bland,
p. 257.

60 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Heparati6n was demanded and refused, and naval
action was taken by blockading the harbour and
so preventing the tribute of rice from going to Peking.
This was but one of a number of incidents where
difficulties arose through the meeting of people
who did not understand one another.

It was in a much deeper way that the religious
and cultural element, entered into the situation
in 1850. This year saw the beginning of the famous
Taiping rebellion,^ one of the chief causes of which
was the meeting there of two alien civilizations. In
its early stages it was^ semi -Christian ; the leaders
destroyed idols and temples wfth the utmost zeal
and gathered themselves into an association for the
worship of the Almighty (Shangti hwei). Very soon
the ideals were lost and the nature of the rising
completely changed. The Taipings took “ the exter-
mination of the Manchus ’’ for their watchword.
The leaders becanv^ demoralized by their early
success and showed no constructive statesmanship.
The country-side for hundreds of miles was destroyed,
and half China was threatened with disorder and
bloodshed. With few exceptions the generals were
bandit chiefs, but it was by no means an easy thing
to overcome them. As everyone knows, China turned
to the despised foreigners for help, and finally, after
fourteen years of strife, Gordon struck the blow
which brought the insurrection to a close. Its
importance from our point of view is to show one
way in which new ideas coming from without began
to affect Chinese life. No doubt many elements
of unrest were already present and possibly some
kind of rebellion might have broken out without
any* outside influence. The vast majority of those
,who took part in it were quite ignorant of Christianity

^ So called because the original idea was that the Tai ping tien
kuo (Heavenly Kingdom of Peace) was to 1^ founded.

COMING INTO ^HE FAMILY (1840-1911) 61

or of the idea which had affected the pioneers of the
movement. But it was these things which acted
as the spark. Similar ideas have acted in different
ways in the years that followed.

It was while* the Taiping rebellion was still in
progress that the second war with Britain was fought.
In this war the French were also involved. It was
another case of the -clashing, of two opposite ideas
of what should be the relation between China and
other States. The war was carried to the North —
Tientsin was occupied, and a treaty was there drawn
up by which China was to^ pay an indemnity of
Tls. 4,000,000, fordgners were to be allowed to
reside in Peking, and Christianity was to be
tolerated. Trouble arose, however, in regard to the
ratification of this treaty and the similar one with
France, owing to the refusal of the Emperor to
permit the envoys to come to Peking (except by
the route used by tribute-beaming expeditions), as
agreed when the treaty was drawn up. Hostilities
broke out again, and this time were carried to Peking,
Envoys under a flag of truce were captured by
the Chinese and tortured. The Emperor fled from the
city as the foreign forces arrived, and the troops
then sacked and destroyed the summer palace
outside Peking.^ This act of vandalism was justified
by its perpetrators on the ground that it was the
only way of touching the Emperor himself, and
no doubt it was to be preferred to pillaging towns
and villages, or the slaughter of the common people
in a further battle. The palace had been constructed
largely under Jesuit influence and contained in-
numerable objects of art. Its destruction is still
remembered against France and England as a terrible

^ This was, of course, the old summer palace, in a different place *
from the new one built by the late Empress-Dowager with money
raised for building a navy.

,62 CHINA IN THE FAMIIY^OF NATIONS

offence, and is one of the many ways in which
Western nations have trampled upon Chinese
susceptibilities. Of course, the Chinese were greatly
to blame for their treatment of the peace envoys
and for going back on their promises', but one cannot
help feeling that more patience and a deeper
knowledge of Chinese character might have led to
a different course of action. •

To the lasting shame of England the treaty which
concluded this war in 1858 legalized the opium
traffic. A British minister was appointed to Peking,
and more treaty ports were opened. In the Chinese
version ^of the French ti*eaty a clause appears giving
Catholic missionaries a right to own property in the
interior. It is said that this clause was introduced
surreptitiously. Upon it was based for many years
the claims of all missionaries to own such property.
Only recently has the position been regularized.

Thus between 1840 and 1858 China was literally
forced open by the** sword, the chief agent being
Britain and the chief motive commercial gain. It
may be argued that it was for the good of China
herself that she should be brought into relation
with other nations, that her rulers were arrogant
and ignorant to a degree, and that along with trade
have come also the blessings of education, healing,
and the preaching of the Gospel. Such arguments
do not really touch the question. If China did not
want the West, what right had the West to force
an entrance ? The people of China were in no sense
whatever a menace to the rest of the world. History
seems to show that in course of time, if patience
had been exercised, they would have been ready
enough to consider new ideas brought to them in
a friendly way. The method of approach was
calculated to sow in the Chinese mind a sense of
deep resentment and prejudice, to stiffen her anti-

COMING INTO JSk FAMILY (1840-1911)

foreign feeling and to awaken movements that
might at any time lead to reprisals. When we read
of such movements, let us make an effort to put
ourselves in the place of the Chinese, the mass of
her people relatfvely ignorant of foreigners, holding
strongly to their own ideas and customs, awakened
rudely and even cruelly at times from a peaceful
slumber which they • regarded as their birthright.
The wonder is not that there tave been incidents ”
when foreigners have suffered ; the wonder is
that there have not been many more.

On such incidents there is no need to dwell. A
massacre of Roman Catholic missionaries in Tientsin
in 1870, the murder of Mr. Margary of the British
Consular Service in 1874, the massacre of French
priests in Annam, the murder of German missionaries
in Shantung in 1897, and finally the Boxer outbreak
in 1900 — these are but a few of many cases where
attacks by Chinese upon foreigners led to reprisals
in which some fresh hold was gained upon China
or her dependencies. In most cases there was blame
upon both sides : in all cases we must remember
that China was not primarily the aggressor, and
that whether by merchant, traveller or missionary,
she was being entered against her will, or at least
without her active concurrence. Yet, when the
outbreak took place, attention was focussed on
that side of the picture which emphasized the faults
of China or her subjects, and not on the extenuating
circumstances or on the long previous history which
had been the predisposing cause of the trouble.
If the Western Powers boasted a higher civilization
and a truer faith, it should have been theirs to show
courtesy, forbearance, and forgiveness, and to be ready
to win their way by the service they could render,
rather than to drive their way in by continual
aggression, and to secure indemnities and concessions

U CHINA IN THE FAMILY OP NATIONS

/

by the threat or the use of military force. But all the
long story of the political and commercial approach of
Christendom to China shows very little that can be said
to express the Spirit of Christ. China has good reason
to know that there is no Christian nation, a sentiment
which I found greeted with tumultuous applause
when I uttered it the other day to a large audience
of Chinese Christians. *

The war between China and France in 1884-6
is another example of mutual misunderstandings
and deception. One result was the permanent
establishment of the French in Tongking. • It led to
some reorganization 6f the Chinese navy under
British' guidance, an instance of the way in which
the friendliness of a foreign Power was only less
serious for China than her enmity. It is one of the
strange psfradoxes of the meeting of East and West
that the latter, after conquering the former, should
devote herself to making it harder to do it next
time. The Westerii trained troops are those which
offer the strongest resistance to troops from the
West. Japan’s German -drilled army destroyed
the German power in Shantung in 1914. At the
same time it is to be noted that, so far as China
was concerned, a good deal of the ammunition
and other war material supplied by the West was
not first-rate, and some even absolutely worthless.
This was due both to the dishonesty of Western
traders and the ignorance or connivance of Chinese
officials who were often ready to sell their country’s
interest for private gain.

During this period, China’s main dependencies
came under foreign control ; S. Burmah and Cochin
China (1862), Liu Kiu Islands and Western Hi
(1881), Tongking, Annam and N. Burmah (1886),
Sikkim (1890), Korea, Formosa and the Pescadores
(1896).

COMING INTO % THE FAMILY (1840-1911) 68

‘ Passing by, for a moment, the crucial develop
ments in Korea and Manchuria, let us bring our
summary of Western intercourse with China down
to 1904, when the whole situation was altered by ,
the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. The
collapse of China in the war with Japan marked
the complete failure of the old order. From the
gr«?»t days of Chien Lung tlje Manchu power had
steadily declined. The period when China had
most need of wise and disinterested statesmanship
to guide her in new and exceedingly intricate relation-
ships coincided with a famine^ of first-rate leadership.
One or two individuals showed above the mass,
but there was no succession of men who could look
ahead, who could see the deeper meaning of what
was happening and who could grasp the situation
and carry through a consistent policy. In this respect
we have a marked contrast between China and
Japan. In the latter country tlje old feudal system
had been preserved. There were certain clan leaders,
trained to think politically, and these men showed
a wisdom, a self-restraint and a patriotism that
were markedly lacking in China while she was facing
a similar situation. The problem of China was indeed
a much harder one, but no one can say what the
present position would be if China had been able
to call upon even a few first-rate statesmen in her
hour of need. Even that great figure, Li Hung Chang,
and his more scholarly though less .astute contem-
porary, Chang Chih Tung, were not big enough
for the situation. Li showed a skill in diplomacy
that on several occasions saved China from greater
humiliation. Chang saw clearly that only by boldly
welcoming the new knowledge could China be saved
from disaster. But the former never seems to have ,
grasped the full significance of what was happening
to his country, and the latter failed to make his

66 CHINA IN THE FAMILY^ OF I^TATIONS

influence felt in the national policy, though doing
much for the provinces under his control, and in
the period of reaction he lost his nerve and backed
up the Empress. Both were, I believe, high-minded
and patriotic men, ready to make a bridge between
the old and the new, but too old and too set in their
own ways to be able either to see how wide was the
gulf or to take the * courageous steps that alone
could have saved the situation.

In November, 1897, two German missionaries
were murdered in the Province of Shantung. Germany
had recently awakened to what was happening in
the Fsw' East. France, England, America, Russia,

‘ had been gaining commercial and political advantage
in China, while Germany had been consolidating her
own Empire and resources, and concentrating on
problems nearer at hand. Now, with a new sense
of a world-destiny, she saw her chance of following
in the wake of France and Britain and Russia.
She made her moves less skilfully and perhaps
a little more brutally. Substantially her policy was
the same — to use China’s weakness and any incident
that presented a favourable opportunity as a means
for securing political and commercial advantage
at China’s expense. China was impotent to resist.
She had already learned, in wars with other Powers,
how useless it was to try the issue in battle against
well -equipped modern armies. She yielded rights
in Shantung for mining and railways, and gave to
Germany a ninety-nine years lease of Kiaochow,
a port which German authorities regarded as capable
of great development.

Immediately, other nations took their cue from
Germany. It would be absurd to suppose that so
valuable a grant to one could be allowed unless
others shared the spoil. Russia demanded and
received Port Arthur, Britain Wei Hai Wei, Prance

COMING INTO^ THE FAMILY (1840-19fl) 6T

iCuang Chow Wan. China was parcelled out into
“ spheres of influence/’ where different countries
could exploit without interference from others.
France was to have the Southern provinces (Yunnan
and Kuangsi), Japan was to have Fukien, Great
Britain the Yangtse Valley, Russia Manchuria.
A Belgian syndicate came in to build a railway
from Peking to Hankow. Itaiy, a little later, made
a similar demand ; but even the patience of the
Chinese comes to an end sometime, and she was
actually refused !

At this period it seemed as if China was simply
like a carcase being cut up and distributech among
a pack of hungry wolves. It was generally expected
that, in course of time, military occupation would
follow commercial exploitation. The Chinese were
indignant and exasperated. They saw that their
country had been “ caught napping.” Under a
conservative and narrow-minded Empress of a foreign
race they seemed powerless to meet the situation.
Many of the younger men felt that, given time and
non-interference, China could adapt herself to
modern conditions. But these were just the elements
that were lacking. The tide rushed in with tumul-
tuous haste, and just as one position was being
prepared, it was found already to be surrounded
by the incoming flood. The feeling was one of deep
resentment and dull despair, accentuated by the
consciousness that China’s own inner weakness was
in part responsible for the catastrophe.

Three things happened that served to alter the
situation. The first move came from America, who,
having recently entered the Far Eastern world as
a political force through the capture of the Philip-
pines, declared for the policy of the open-door,
and Great Britain pledged her full support. The
other Powers were shamed into agreeing in a half-

C8 CHINA IN THE FAMILY^ OF NATIONS

hearted way. This checked, for a while at any rate,
the policy of “ spheres of influence,’’ and gave China
some hope that the development might be a peaceful
economic penetration rather than, a military and
political scramble.

The second event was the Boxer outbreak, and
the third was the Russo-Japanese War. We must
now look at these two more closely.

While, as I have said, the Chino -Japanese War
gave an impetus to the aggressive designs of the
Western Powers, it also aroused many Chinese to the
need for more far-reaching reforms. The object lesson
^ of a nation long regarded as almost beneath the
contempt of China, a mere island in the Eastern
seas, suddenly arising in her might and striking
China to the dust, was one which could not be over-
looked. The Emperor, stimulated by Chang Chih
Tung’s famous book, Learn (translated under the
title China's Onlyo Hope)y proclaimed an era of
reform and modern education. For a brief period
he stood out before the people as the leader
of the country into a new world where something
more than the glories of Yao and Shun might be
realized. Young China found in him her champion,
and eyes turned eagerly to the future rather than
to the past. Among the Imperial edicts which fell
like autumn leaves upon the astonished people,
were those calling for a complete change in the
old examination system, for the establishment of
colleges and technical schools on Western lines,
for the right of direct approach to the throne, for
a thorough reorganization of the government, for
a remodelling of the army. Two young Cantonese
were high in the councils of the young Emperor,
Kang Yu Wei and Liang Chi Ch’ao. For just one
hundred days the curtain seemed to lift and the
nation was filled by a strange mixture of elated

COMING INTO% THE FAMILY (1840-.1911) 69

eicpectancy and gloomy foreboding. In the last
of this series of edicts we read words that show
how long a journey it was from Ch’ien Lung to
Kuang &u. He says : —

“ In promoting reforms, we have adopted certain,
European methods, because, while China and Europe
are both alike in holding that the first object of
good government should be the welfare of the people,
Europe has travelled further* on this road than we
have, so that by introduction of European methods
we simply make good China’s deficiencies. But
our statesmen and scholars are so ignorant of what
lies beyond our borders that ^hey look upon Europe
as possessing no civilization. They are all unaware
of those numerous branches of Western knowledge
whose object is to enlighten the minds and increase
the material prosperity of the people.”

Unfortunately the enthusiasm of the Emperor
and his advisers had not reckoned with two facts — ^the
innate conservatism of the people, and the personal
power and resourcefulness of the Empress-Dowager
Tzu Hsi. Lulled to sleep by her apparent inaction,
the Emperor allowed to slip by the crucial moment
when her intrigues might have been stopped. With
the cunning of a tiger she awaited her time and
sprang upon her prey. In Yuan Shih Kai she
found one who had been trusted by the Emperor,
but was willing to turn against him. The Emperor
was spared but shut up where he could do no more
harm. The hundred-day reforms were cancelled.
The door was, as it were, slammed in the face of
the insistent West, and the first step was taken
on the path that led to the Boxer outbreak, with its
fateful consequences.

♦Naturally our sympathies go out to the young
Emperor, eager to help his people and fulfil his
high functions, filled with enthusiasm, and no longer

ro CHINA IN THE FAMHuY^ OF NATIONS

bound by the pride and prejudice that had marked
the rulers of China for so long. But we must
remember that he was clearly before his time, that
he had tried to force the pace more than an ancient
people, bound by traditions, coifld really stand,
and that he sufiEered, as many another would-be
reformer, because he lacked the strength of character,
without which such a^ reform movement could not
be carried through against terrific obstruction' and
the dense ignorance of the people. He always
remembered against Yuan Shi Kai the fact that
his treachery had precipitated the crisis It was
the memory of this betrayal that kept the South
from giving their full confidence to Yuan when
he took over the reigns of government as President
of the Republic in 1912.

From the deposition and imprisonment of the
Emperor the tide of reaction set in without any
check. The Boxer movement was the expression
of this among the common people. China has always
been a land of secret societies, and their influence
has generally been a baneful one. This movement,
as everyone knows, did irreparable damage not
only to the cause of missions and Christianity, but
to China herself. It was the culminating point
in the reactionary movement, and the Empress
encouraged it, secretly at first and then publicly.
Finally, when she saw that it was doomed to failure,
she embarked upon an elaborate policy of hedging.
All along she had apparently been in two moods,
torn between her violent dislike of foreigners on
the one hand, and on the other hand her sense of
the realities of the situation which warned her,
against her wishes and passion, that she was backing
the wrong horse. The Boxer uprising was only
put down after the advance of the Allied troops
to Peking, where again Western civilization was

COMING INTO THE FAMILY (1840-1911) 71

disgraced in the eyes of China by the sack of the
Imperial Palace, the destruction and theft of many
priceless treasures, and the lack generally of respect
for much that China reverenced. In Peking peace
was dictated after many months of negotiation.
Besides providing for the punishment of a number
of high officials (though not, of course, of the chief
offender, the Empress-Dowager) the treaty secured
a final adjustment on the vexed question of the
reception of foreign ministers by the Emperor,
and arranged for the payment of a huge indemnity
of 450 million taels, to be paid in annual instalments
spread over forty years.

The Boxer outbreak had several very notable
effects. It gave Western nations an indication that
all was not well in their relations with China. They
were not dealing simply with an effete goverhment
which could be bullied or bribed into accepting any
demands, however outrageous. In China there
was a deep substratum of resentment towards foreign
aggression. No doubt most Westerners still put it
all down to the prejudice and stupidity of a semi-
civilized people. But there must have been a good
many whose eyes were opened by this terrible reaction
to the fact that there were deep-seated causes for
the dislike of the foreigner. I am interested in seeing
how even so blatant a Westerner as Mr. Bland
in China under the Empress-Dowager pauses for
a moment in his narrative to point out that all
Chinese and Manchu officials (the book was written
before the days of the Republic) “ agree and unite
in frankly confessing to their hatred of the foreigner
and all his wishes. Those,’’ he says, “ who pose
as the friends of foreigners merely advocate (iis-
simulation as a matter of expediency. The thought
should . . . lead us to consider what are the causes,
in us or in them, which produce so constant and

72 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

BO deep a hatred/’ ^ Without necessarily endorsing
the statement, one may admit that it is near
enough to the truth to make us ask some very heart-
searching questions. Backhouse and Bland do not
pursue the subject beyond suggesting that it may
be due to fear for their craft. We shall, perhaps,
after the story reviewed in these pages, be able
to reach a conclusion reflecting less credit on ourselves
and the countries to which we belong !

But the Boxer outbreak had also a very important
internal result. It showed China that it was really
no use to try to throw off Western influence and
revert to the “ good ol‘d days.” For good or ill the
West had gained too great a hold on China to be
simply driven away in a fit of fury. That was not
the solution of the problem. A few great Chinese
saw this before 1900, notably the two officials Yiian
Ch’ang and Hsii Ching Ch’eng who lost their lives
for protesting against Tzii Hsi’s policy of encouraging
the Boxers, and the 'C'iceroys who withheld the decrees
she sent out ordering the extermination of all
foreigners. After the siege of Peking, with all the
further indignities that she suffered, China as a
whole may be said to have learnt the lesson, far
as many were from being reconciled in spirit to
the inevitable. Very soon the Empress was re-
enacting the same reforms for which the Emperor
had suffered, though she did it more cautiously.
Reactionary China had learnt in a very bitter
experience that she could not live to herself. She
had been forced to accept her position as a member
of the world family. Looking back, one can certainly
say that the process was needlessly severe, that
little, if any, heed was paid to her susceptibilities,
pnd we may even doubt whether China has gained
anything commensurate with what she has lost.

' Op. cit., p. 334.

COMING INTO THE FAMILY (1840-1911) 78

But we cannot help admitting that the process was
inevitable, that forces were at work which were
cortain, sooner or later, to bring her into the family,
and that blame for the suffering entailed in the
process cannot M be laid at the door of the Western
nations.

The third event which served to check the
exploitation of China by Western nations was
the Russo-Japanese War. In order to understand
this we must go back to an earlier point in history.
While most of the European Powers were jostling
one another in China proper, each jealous lest the
other should steal a march* upon her, Russia was
quietly consolidating her position and tightening
her grip upon the area north of the Great Wall.
It is unnecessary to trace all the steps that led to
the treaty in 1881, by which for a short time the
Russian advance was checked. She was engaged
in the steady, persistent search for an ice-free port,
but she was anxious to maintain friendly relations
with China, or at any rate to avoid open war. In
the following year Korea was opened to intercourse
with the West. This was the result of the Japanese
advance in that country and the forcible opening of
certain ports to Japanese trade. Already at that
date Japan was beginning to learn lessons from
European methods in China, and she was trying
experiments on a small scale in Korea. This country
was nominally a vassal state to China, and it was
a matter of some importance to China, for the defence
of her own frontiers, that Korea should not come
under the control of any foreign power. Russia, on
the one hand, and Japan, on the other, looked to
Korea as fair game. Each took every possible
opportunity for increasing its hold. The unsettled
state of Korea in 1894 led to a request from the
King for troops from China. The fact that these

74 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

were sent without notice being first given to Japan ^
was made an excuse by the latter Power for pouring
in an army of her own, and very soon the two
countries were at war. China was out-manoeuvred
at sea and out-generalled on land. Her reorganized
fleet and army proved quite unable to stand up to
the Japanese, although in one or two battles a
desperate resistance was offered. The treaty which
concluded the war gave*Korea nominal independence,
and ceded the Liaotung Peninsula (with Port
Arthur), the Pescadores and Formosa to Japan.
Russia, Germany and France united, by threat
of war, to deprive Japhn of what she regarded as
one of tlie main fruits of her victory, namely, the
Liaotung Peninsula, in place of which she was
compelled to accept a further large indemnity.
As a reward for befriending China, Russia was given
permission to carry the Trans-Siberian Railway
through Manchuria to Vladivostok and to build
branch lines to Moifkden and Port Arthur. Thus
were sown the seeds of the Russo-Japanese War,
some ten years later.

A glance at the map will show the nature of the
problem that lay behind this encounter. Three
parties laid claim to Korea. By national affinities
and by tradition China was the state which should
have controlled Korean affairs, if that country
were unable to control her own. China, however,
was unable to deal with her own problems, and
was manifestly unable to help Korea in any effective
way. The Korean Government was weak and corrupt.
Russia from the north-west was extending her vast
domains and obviously desired to engulf Korea.
She, obtained large timber and other concessions,
and it was clear to Japanese statesmen that unless

^ A previous treaty between China and Japan provided that
auoh notice should be given.

COMING TNTb THE FAMU^Y (1840-1911) 75

she was checked she would soon be in complete
control and able to threaten the shores of Japan.
While Japan could afford to see Korea independent,
even if weak aqd ill-governed, she did not feel able
to look with equanimity upon so near a neighbour
under the power of what then was one of the great
European Imperial systems. It is easy to blame
Japan for her Korean policy, and there are aspects
of it which no one can excuse. But we must under-
stand the nature of her dilemma. A weak Korea
meant a Korea dominated by Russia. There was
not the smallest chance of .either China or Korea
effectively resisting such a domination. • Japan’s
only hope of salvation seemed to be to stop Russia
before it was too late and to maintain her own
position in Korea so strongly as to obviate the danger
of a Russified neighbour across the Straits of Tsushima,
Even if Japan had not had an imperialistic policy,
and had not desired to gain the immense economic
advantage which would accrue through the ex-
ploitation of Korea and perhaps of Manchuria, the
policy of self-defence in a world of predatory states
marked out her course in this affair. She chose
her time with skill. She struck quickly and hard
and repeatedly. When almost exhausted financially,
and well knowing that prolongation of the war
would change the situation to her loss, she let it
be known that she would listen to overtures of peace
from a neutral state. By appearing to insist upon
demands unacceptable to Russia and in the end
withdrawing them, Japan obtained a treaty which
gave her ail that she really wanted. Russia recognized
Japan’s paramount influence in Korea ; she trans-
ferred to Japan the lease of the Liaotung Peninsula,
ceded half the island of Saghalien, and handed '
over the control of the Chinese Eastern Railway
from the coast to Kwanchengtze.

76 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

The effects of the Russo- Japanese War have been
immense in China and in regard to China’s destiny.
I may summarize these effects as follows : —

1. At first there was a sense of relief and gratitude
in China because the menace of itussia had been
destroyed. Japan was the champion of the East
against the West. I was in Tientsin when the Russian
fleet was being sunk a* few hundred miles away in
the Straits, and I can well remember with what
satisfaction the news was received by the Chinese.

2. This led to a great turning towards Japan.
What she had done , China could do. Tens of
thousands of Chinese students flocked to the Japanese
Universities- Missions were sent further afield to
discover the secrets that Japan had so skilfully
learnt from the West.

3. It was not long, however, before China dis-
covered that Japan was going to throw away
her priceless opportanity of befriending her weaker
brother. Chinese students were treated with indignity
in Japan. The policy of the country was to exploit
rather than to help her neighbour. Russia had been
effectively checked, if not finall}^^ defeated, and
Western nations realized at last that a force had
arisen in the East which could challenge and even
outdo them in the policy of grab. But if the yoke
of Russia in the North had been heavy, that of
Japan was yet more so. China discovered that
she had fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire.

4. The stimulus to reform, however, remained.
The people of China had already been made aware
of the impotence of their old methods to meet the
new situation. There was a general determination
to' discover the real secrets of adjusting the country

’ in the light of modern knowledge. Not along the
lines of Japanese development could China proceed
to remodel her government. She must go further

COMING INTO THE FAMILY (1840-1911) 77

^ack to the source from which Japan had drawn
her inspiration and apply the new knowledge in
her own way to meet her own quite different needs.
Increasingly since the close of the Russo-Japanese
War has China turned rather to America than to
Japan to find the inspiration and help she needs.

CHAPTER V

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

PRESIDENTS OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC.

Sim Yat Sen .... 1911-12 (2 months)

Yuan Shih Kai . . . 1912-15

(Emperor for a few weeks)

Li Yuen Hung . ‘ . . 1915-17

(Manchu restoration abortive)

Feng Kuo Chang . . . 1917-18

Hsii Shih Ch’ang . . . 1918-22

Li Yuen Hung (second term) . 1922

SOUTHERN REPUBLIC.

Sun Yat Sen .... 1920-22

4

Wb have brought our record of China’s relations
to the foreign states down to the close of the Russo-
Japanese War and we have noted how that war
ajBEected the Chinese situation. We can now turn
aside from this political, military and commercial
interchange between China and the West and con-
sider the internal political changes in large measure
a result of influences from without.

Never in history has it proved to be an easy
thing for a nation radically to alter her form of
government. Often such changes have been accom-
panied by much bloodshed, by a longer or shorter
period of unsettlement or anarchy, and by the
creation or deepening of bitter feuds between
different sections of the people. China’s change
•from autocracy to democracy is no exception, save
only that in the matter of bloodshed and violence
her record up to the present is probably a good deal

THE REPUBLIC 05^ CHINA 79

better than that of most of the Western examples
that suggest themselves.

While the central government of China up to
1911 had always been of the autocratic type, Ut
must be remembered that there were certain direc-
tions in which the country had been prepared for
the introduction of democratic institutions. These
may be summarized in the fallowing points : —

1. Philosophically the right of the people to
rebel had, as we have seen, been maintained by
Mencius. The Emperor was regarded as a trustee
responsible, in the last resort,^ to the people. If he
betrayed the trust the people had the reihedy in
their own hands.

2. Again and again — some twenty -four times —
in Chinese history the people had actually used
that remedy. The Emperor could see for himself,
by consulting the records, that the Chinese demo-
cracy was a fact with which to Peckon.

3. The system of selecting advisers, legislators
and minor officials which came down from the
Ch’in dynasty was that the headman of each
locality recommended scholars of distinction to the
throne. Through these men the Emperor could
keep in touch with the wishes of his people in every
part of his domain. When this was altered to the
examination system during the Tsin dynasty (sixth
century a.d.) it was supposed that this would give
an even better chance for men of merit — however
lowly their origin — to share in the government. The
nature of the examination and the long and expensive
preparation required largely neutralized this idea,
but even under this system there have been manj-
examples of officials springing from humble homes.

4. Even more important is the fact that a large
amount of local self-government had been deve-
loped throughout the country. Within each family

80 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

you have a miniature kingdom, the family often
consisting of a large number of persons. The
heads of the families or clans in any village or
market-town constitute an informal group for carry-
ing on certain public services, arbitrating in dis-
putes, and even at times trying criminal cases.
Moreover the trade laws or conventions in China
are those set in operatfon not by the central or local
government but by the trade guilds, organized on a
democratic basis. ^ The local gentry, the chambers
of commerce, and now the educational associa-
tions, are factors that have a very considerable
influenot; on local and provincial government, and
such organizations are far more democratic than
is any central government that China had known
before the Republic.

At the same time it may well be questioned
whether China as a whole was at all adequately
prepared for so s\ieeping a change as that which
took place in 1911. In the light of events we may
pick out certain directions in which much more
preparation was needed. Yuan Shih Kai, who,
though never really believing in the ideals of the
reformers, was at any rate an astute observer of
the life of China, gave his views in the following
words : “I doubt whether the people of China
are at present ripe for a Republic or whether, under
present conditions, a Republic is adapted to the
Chinese peoplp. . . . The adoption of a limited
monarchy would bring conditions back to the
normal and would bring stability much more
rapidly than that end could be attained through
any experimental form of government, unsuited to
the genius of the people or to the present conditions
of China.’* 2

1 See Chapter IX, pp. 174-5.

* Quoted iu Modem China, a Political Study, p. 16,

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

81

When we have reviewed the events of the last
ten years we may be better able to judge whether
this opinion has or has not been borne out by
them. It may be that we are still too much in
the midst of them to reach any final opinion.

Following the Russo-Japanese War the Empress-
Dowager perceived that a demand by the people
for a larger share in the govefnment of the country
could no longer be ignored. Shrewd enough to see
what was happening, but blind enough to believe
that an appearance of self-government without the
real thing would keep the people quiet, the Empress
promulgated a scheme for the setting up Pro-
vincial Assemblies which were to be simply advisory
bodies with no executive functions. The loudly
proclaimed idea was that these bodies were to pre-
pare the way for full representative government.
Whether the Empress was sincere in this profession
or not we can never certainly know, as death
removed her from the scene in November 1908,
long before the time came for carrying out the
further changes. The Emperor Kuang Hsu had
died on the previous day. The new Emperor was
a child of four years old, the succession having
been arranged by the Empress in order to keep
the real power in her own hands. Had there been
a strong and enlightened man among the Manchu
princes to take the lead at this crisis it is conceiv-
able that China might have moved by peaceful
stages to a limited monarchy. Such a person was
not to be found. The Regent, father to the young
Emperor, and his relations were utterly unscru-
pulous, and had no appreciation of the real situa-
tion. Professing to carry forward the constitu-
tional changes, they absolutely ignored the newly-
created assemblies, they filled all the chief posts
with Manchus, dismissing among others Yuan Shih

82 CmNA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Kai, and they sold positions in all parts of the
country to the highest bidder.

Whether Yuan Shih Kai was right or not in his
judgment as to China's readinesa for a Republic,
there is no doubt that the people were in this way
prepared for a revolution. As it turned out the
revolution, long anticipated by a small group of
reformers, was eagerly fomented by them, and
thus became not only an anti-Manchu but also a
pro-Republican one. With dramatic suddenness the
end came. Beginning with a protest by. the people
of Szechwan against*- the conclusion of a foreign
loan foi building the railway to that province, the
revolt against the authorities rapidly spread down
the Yangtse to Hankow and Wuchang, and involved
the larger part of the south. The ground had been
prepared by Sun Yat Sen, long an outlaw with
a price upon his head. His agents and friends
were to be found "'in all walks of life. The army
of the south was riddled with revolutionary ideas.
Li Yuen Hung, a commander in the Imperial Army
at Wuchang, became the military leader. By this
time the Manchus realized that they had made
a mistake in dismissing the one strong man who
had trained the only modern army in China. Yuan
Shih Kai had been “ allowed to go to his native
place because of his poor state of health." He
suddenly recovered, returned to Peking, took con-
trol of the army and of government, and insisted
on the abdication of the Regent.

The Northern armies speedily advanced to
Hankow and recaptured Hanyang. Here Yuan
Shih Kai halted. He saw that the revolution could
riot be crushed, at any rate without terrible blood-
shed. AU he wanted was a strategic position from
which to negotiate. He began by playing for a
limited monarchy with a constitution similar to that

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 88

of Great Britain, Sun Yat Sen is no man lor half
measures. It was clear that on this basis an agrees*
. ment was not possible. While matters were being
discussed Nanking was captured by the Republicans.
Yuan was compelled to shift his ground, and worked
for satisfactory terms for the abdicating Emperor.
These were agreed to. The last Manchu edict,
issued in the name of fhe Empress-Dowager,
widow of Kuang Hsii, a masterpiece of face-saving,
Contains the following sentences : —

“ The majority of the whole people are in favour
of a republic- . . . Such being the general incli-
nation, Heaven’s ordinance Inay be divined. How
could I dare to disregard the wishes of thd millions
for the sake of the glory of one family ? . . . The
territories of the Manchus, Chinese, Mongolians,
Mohammedans and Thibetans shall be consolidated
into a great Republic of China. The Emperor and
I will retire into leisure to pass easily through the
months and years and to see flhe consummation of
wise government. This will indeed be excellent ! ”
The last act in the drama was the abdication of
Sun Yat Sen as President in favour of Yuan Shih
Kai, a step taken in the hope of thus uniting North
and South, and in recognition of the fact that what
China needed most was peace and unity. In his
closing address to the Assembly at Nanking, Sun
called upon the nation to show its devotion to
democratic principles and to the peace ideal by
helping to bring peace into the whole world.

The history of the ten years which have elapsed
since the formation of the Republic is one of many
changes, little real progress, unsettlement within
and dangers from without — a history which may
well give true lovers of China cause for discourage-
ment though not for despair. When the Republic
was set up, China was but starting out upon a

84 CHINA IN THE FAMILY t)F N&ONS

voyage of discovery. She was like Columbus setting
sail upon the voyage which was to lead to the dis-
covery of a new world. Like him China had many
storms to face, long hours of uncertainty and dis-
appointment, hardship, and even' the danger of
mutiny. Those who proclaimed the Republic acted
as if all were accomplished and the work was done.
Far other were the f^cts. Yuan Shih Kai, as we
have seen, never really believed in the Republic,
and was not trusted by the predominant party in
Parliament. He maintained, with some truth, that
the agitation for a Republic had only served to
teach the people that democracy meant no taxes
and no government. He saw that China was in a
parlous state, that she needed money and that she
might, through anarchy, become more than ever a
prey to Japan and Europe. The Parliamentarians,
on the other hand, were determined to limit his
powers in every way possible. Personally I believe
that Yuan was si:ftcere]y convinced that he was
acting for the good of China, although it is impos-
sible to acquit him of personal ambition and lack
of sympathy with many with whom it was necessary
to work if the unity of the country was to be main-
tained on any other basis than that of his personal
ascendancy. He chose for advisers men he knew,
rather than those who represented the various
different elements in the nation. In short he simply
did not know how to run a Republic, and it cannot
be said that the* Republican party knew much better.

Very soon things reached a climax. The clauses
in the constitution defining the duties of the Presi-
dent could not be agreed upon when such different
ideas prevailed, nor was Yuan ready to give to
his opponents the right to elect his Cabinet, or even
to submit to Parliament the agreement for a foreign
loan, which was urgently needed to meet immediate

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 85

necessities. He signed the loan agreement over the
heads of Parliament. The Radicals (Kuo-ming-tang)
left Peking for the South. A new revolution broke
out, and was suppressed by Yuan, and he became,
to all intents and purposes, dictator. His autocracy,
with only the show of constitutional support, con-
tinued with such success that even his shrewdness
was deceived by his ambition. He engineered a
demand that he should be called to restore the
monarchy and himself act as Emperor. The mem-
bers of the Provincial Assemblies were called together
to vote on the momentous issue. They sat down
each with a sheet of paper in front of him ^n which
the ballot was to be cast. One of two characters
was to be written on it. Beside the paper lay
another on which the character for assent was
written as a fair copy. Behind each representative
stood (in one of the Provincial Assemblies, at any
rate) a soldier quietly repeating the word Absent !
When the result of this “secret ballot” was
declared it showed a united and unanimous nation
ready to support the proposal ! Yuan Shih Kai
became Emperor of China by the choice of a loyal
and united people !

This was the proverbial “last straw.” The revo-
lution broke out again and once more the country
would have been rent in twain had it not been
that, to quote a Chinese writer, “ for this deadlock,
Providence found a solution by calling Yuan Shih
Kai to heaven.” ^

Li Yuen Hung, the general who led the central
China revolutionary armies in 1911, became Presi-
dent on the death of Yuan, having previously been
Vice-President, and having been elected as President
by the Southern party prior to the decease of hi^
predecessor. On his appointment he restored the
* S. O. Cheng, in Modem China, a FolUicod Stvidy, p. 25,

86 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

reality of representative government as far as he
was able to do so. The conflict between the
revolutionary majority in Parliament and the central
executive, which still demanded more power than
the proposed constitution gave to them, was, how-
ever, reopened, mainly because the Prime Minister,
General Tuan Chi Jui,^was really opposed to parlia-
mentary methods and principles. The Prime
Minister became virtual dictator in place of the
President. The constitution was nearly completed
in spite of all internal difiiculties when once again
the situation in the ^world outside destroyed the
peace of“ China. The issue was as to whether or
not China ' should declare war on Germany. At
this stage I do not propose to dwell on the many
factors that entered into the discussion. I must
simply note that a strong difference of opinion
developed at Peking, that the Prime Minister was
determined to declafe war in spite of the opposition
of Parliament, and that the President thereupon
dismissed him. This precipitated civil strife and
led to the brief abortive effort to restore the
Manchu dynasty. General Tuan was recalled to
meet the situation and overcame the imperialists,
while Li Yuen Hung resigned the presidency, feeling
that he had been forced into unconstitutional action.
He left his office with the reputation of a man of
honour and patriotism, a sincere believer in the
new regime, but not a strong enough man to
handle the growing power of the militarists.

The result was a purely military regime, first
under the presidency of General Feng Kuo Chang,,
and then under that of Hsu Shih Ch’ang, the
bosom friend of Yuan Shih Kai. The semblance
of parliamentary forms has been maintained, but
everyone knows that there is no reality in them.

The power behind the throne ” has been, from

87

THE ttEPUBLIC OF CHINA

that day to this, the man or men who could com-
mand the largest following of troops. First one
general and then another has been in the ascendant.
Sometimes there has been an uneasy balance
between two or three, as no one knew who was
the strongest, and none dared to try conclusions.
The effective control of the central government
has varied. So far as the foreign-controlled ser-
vices are concerned, that is to say the customs,
the post ofl8.ce and the salt gabelle, there has been
a fair degree of control and unity, though even
here revenues have been deflected by local officials
who in many cases have been defiant of the Peking
government. Several provinces have broken away,
some more completely than others, and formed
independent administrations, or come under the
sway of different military governors, who have
fought one another for no fixed principles, guided
only by greed of gain and personal ambitions.
Here and there a man more patriotic than the others
has stood out for a brief spell. But in the main
the people of China have suffered patiently under
many masters. The outstanding exception to this
was the effective interference of the people, largely
at the instigation of the students, in ousting the
so-called An Fu party, of which General Tuan was
a leading member. This was really part of an
anti- Japanese movement and had little relation to
the constitutional issue. It only resulted in the
replacement of one set of militarists by another.
Its chief significance is that the people have again
shown that they can, when really roused, bring
about a change in the government of the country,
even when all the power seems to rest with persons
who have the control of troops and finance.

Before bringing this story quite up to date, I
want to refer to one very important element in

68 CHINA IN THE FAMILY ♦OF NATIONS

the situation, namely, the struggle between the
North and the South. By this I am not merely
referring to the actions which led to the formation
of a Southern government in Canton in 1920 under
Sun Yat Sen. I wish rather to examine the
inwardness of the situation because it is in connec-
tion with this long-standing dispute between the
two parts of China that we find a key to the real
battle of principle, a far more important thing
than the personal jealousies and factions which so
largely govern the internal situation in China to-day.

We have already seen that the Empire of China
began in what is now North China. This was the
home oi the great philosophies and of the civiliza-
tion, literature and art that have spread all over
China since those early days. At several times in
Chinese history the country has been re-divided
into sections, notably at the time of the Three
Kingdoms and during the period that preceded
the final establishrtient of Kublai Khan’s Empire
in 1280. This division has certain geographical
and psychological causes. The Northerners have
had to face constant incursions and have developed
a military spirit, have sought rather to protect
themselves, and have therefore learnt the art of
sticking to one another, even when their rulers
have been far from ideal. The Southerners, on
the other hand, have developed more of the busi-
ness and colonizing instincts. They have been
a restless and adventurous race, excelling in initia-
tive and in their power to assimilate new ideas.
WMle broad generalizations are always dangerous,
it is fair to say that there had developed a distinct
difference between the peoples of Canton and the
neighbouring parts on the one hand and those of
Peking and the Northern provinces on the other.
On the whole West China approximates more to

THE toUBLIC OF CHINA 89

the independent progressive Southern type than
to the slower and more conservative Northern type.

In recent history we have seen how the Taiping
rebellion started in the South and spread to Nanking,
but never took hold in the North. Southerners/
have been the leading spirits in the revolutionary?
movement in the last twenty years. The North'
has followed some way bel^ind, and more or less
reluctantly. No doubt for some two thousand ,
years the unity of language and literature has been
a considerable factor in holding North and South
together. But as new ideas began to pour into
the country the more receptive Southerners became
much more deeply influenced, and it is not unlikely,
in my view, that this fact will continue to operate
for several generations, and that the problem of
holding North and South together will tax the
utmost resources of Chinese statesmanship. The
chief modern fact operating in the other direction
is the new spirit of patriotism stimulated as it has
been so largely by foreign aggression.

Mr. Cheng quotes two utterances that put the
opposing ideas in sharp contrast, and I venture
to reproduce them here. The Prime Minister, Tuan,
voiced the Northern policy in these words : —

“ I hope to unite and pacify the country by the
aid of my Northern colleagues. . . . The policy of
attacking the south and the south-west is only
adopted because the Government, in recent years,
has exhausted its wisdom and ability in meeting
parliamentary tumults and has been sick of party
compromise. . . . Looking around the country, I
find that only the real force of the Northern mili-
tarists can save and protect the country and enforce
the law. . . . The break up of the Northern mili-
tary party will be introductory to the break up
of our country, and the extinction of the force of

90 CHINA IN THE FAMILY 6f NATIONS

the North will be an omen of the extinction of
China as an independent State.”

On the other hand Dr. Wu Ting Fang thus
expressed the Southern point of view : —

** Northern soldiery have been sent to Southern
provinces to overawe the people with the mailed
fist when it is notorious that the people distrust
and fear the strange soldiers. Such stationing of
troops reminds one of the procedure that conquerors
adopt towards vanquished nations and subject
races. Where military power is insufiicient to per-
mit this, . . . they do not hesitate to commission
a man with a bloody rdcord to lead several thousand
undisciplined hordes to burn and pillage throughout
the provinces, and, as if that were not enough, to
let loose the local brigands for this purpose by
furnishing them with arms and bribes. They know
no law save their own interest. They acknowledge
no authority save force. The highest institutions
in the land, Constttution, Parliament, President,
are nothing to them.”

Whatever we may think of the sincerity of the
actual speakers, it is clear that there is a case for
each side, that there is a radical difference in view-
point and that skill and forbearance are needed if
any political unity is to be achieved.

It may thus be said that while most of the
internal warfare since the Revolution has been due
to the self-interest of individual war-lords, there
has been and sjbill is a deep difference between the
conservative and the radical elements. This differ-
ence expressed itself in the establishment of the
Southern Republic under the presidency of Sun
Yat Sen in 1920.

The impression which I gained of this Republic
and of the President himself may be of interest.
I paid a visit to Canton in the autumn of 1921.

91

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Very different opinions were current as to the
Republican government. I was told on the one
hand that they were a set of adventurers, that
there was no stability in the government, that its
reforms were paper reforms and that its authority
extended scarcely at all beyond the city and its
immediate surroundings. On, the other hand there
were those who believed it to be the one hope for
China, a government which had already made a
complete change in the province, and which would
shortly be seen to be the one really stable and
honest government for China •as a whole.

Neither view seemed to me to be borner out by
the facts. The city government, under the mayor,
a son of the President, seemed to be efficient and
progressive. Certain great abuses had been tackled
with success and others were being dealt with
gradually. Much rebuilding of the city was being
undertaken. Broad roads wei^ being cut right
through the crowded native city, regardless of all
rights of property — and even of the comfort of
the citizens and their families. Houses were cut
in two and no compensation offered, on the ground
that the property had more than doubled in value
by being brought on to a main road ! Strikes
had been settled in several cases by the interven-
tion of the authorities, almost entirely in favour of
the strikers (and it was reported that a day’s wage
of all members of the union had been more than
once voted to the President as a thank-offering
for his intervention). It was easy to understand
that a government so strongly socialist in its
tendency and not at all inclined to agree to the
demands of foreign capitalists would meet with^
opposition and be spoken of slightingly in Hong’
Kong.

My own feeling was that there were a number

92 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

of high-minded men in the government, that they
were sincerely convinced that they were working
for the good of China, and that in several cases
they had really achieved something of value. At
the same time I could not feel any confidence that
the government would be able to last, or that it
would prove in the e^nd a satisfactory one. The
following reasons led me to these conclusions.

1. In the first place the President himself
seemed to me to be a man who could not see more
than one side of a question. I talked with him
for a long time quite*^ intimately. He was entirely
unaffected and approachable — a democrat in manner
as well as in theory. He showed a wide interest
in what was happening in the world, a considerable
knowledge of affairs, as for example conditions in
India, and a keen sympathy with progressive move-
ments. But I found tliat he scarcely seemed aware of
the fact that there ^fas another side to some questions
we discussed, and was unable to appreciate that there
might be a modicum of right in a point of view which
was, on the whole, wrong. It seemed to me that
sooner or later he was bound to fail in actually carry-
ing out even those policies in which he was in the
main right and where he had the confidence of most
of the people, as was the case when I was there. His
record has shown also that he has failed to choose
men wisely for the various positions of trust he
has had to fill,, and I felt that one or two of those
I met were manifestly unfit for their work. Of
course the President must have had great difficulty
in choosing his associates, but I am disposed to
think that he had not shown great wisdom in some
of his selections.

2. At the time when I was in Canton the rift
between the President and Ch’en Ch’ung Ming had
already begun, and it seemed to me that the same

98

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

difficulties, partly personal, and partly matters of
principle, which had broken up the Northern govern-
ment, were in danger of having a like effect in the
South. At the same time it is fair to say that, as
far as I could jiXdge, there was much less graft in
Canton than in Peking.

3. Perhaps the matter which gave me chief appre-
hension was the fact that Dr. Sun was set upon a
policy of military conquest. I spoke to him very
franldy on this matter and told him that such a
policy, while it might add a province or two to the
South, would have far less ef|ect in unifying China
than a steady period of good government in the
two provinces already under his control. To estab-
lish there a regime of peace and prosperity, and to
show that this part of China could be governed
by Chinese, without interference from the North
or from foreigners, would, I maintained, do more
than anything else to convince the world that the
Republic should be acknowledged, and also to
bring other provinces into alliance with Kwangtung
and Kwangsi, in a united states of China or other
similar unity. After my talk with Sun Yat Sen
I discovered that this very point was one of those
at issue between himself and Ch’en Ch’ung Ming,
and that the latter had refused to lead the Southern
forces in the Northern expedition. It proved to be
an ill-fated one, and was a chief cause leading to
the collapse of Sun’s administration. In short, what
was happening was that the South 'was forsaking
the very principles for which it stood and taking
up the methods of the North.

4. A fourth reason that led me to doubt the
possibility of permanence in the Southern govem,-
ment was the evident failure to maintain order
in many parts of the province. It must be con-
fessed that there was a good deal of what is called

94 ilHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

** face-pidgin ** in the affairs of that government,
and that when once you forsook the beaten track
very little could be seen of the boasted reforms.

It is quite true that, at that time, the govern-
ment had the support of the mass of the people
in Canton itself. Speaking there I found an atmo-
sphere very different from that in the North.
Instead of pessimism and a sense of the uselessness
of trying to oppose a corrupt government except
by the slow methods of education, I found a sense
of elation and hope among the students and edu-
cated people. They ^ believed that they were on
the road towards realizing their dreams. In spite
of my ‘sympathy with a number of the specific
reforms, I could not share that confidence. One
thing that interested me was to find that a method
of functional representation was being worked out
for the municipal council, a plan which I should
expect to see tried in other parts of China, as it
seems to be specially suitable for that country.

To return to the situation in the North and in
China generally, a fuller reference may be made
to the ideas embodied in the provisional constitu-
tion. This document is even now, while I write,
in process of revision and will doubtless be mate-
rially changed. But as it is almost the only docu-
ment we have which can give us any clear idea
of what revolutionary China is striving for in the
matter of government I think it is worth some
attention. »

The only part of the constitution which can be
regarded as permanently adopted is the section
referring to the President. Even the validity of
this clause would be widely challenged, as it was
forced through by Yuan Shih Kai in order to
regularize his own position, and was used to give
him authority to disregard constitutional methods.

95

THE REPUBLIC OP CHINA

In any case, it is only provisionally adopted. This
clause provides for the election of the President
by both Houses of Parliament in joint session.
His term is five years and he can be re-elected once.
He is the source of all executive powers. With
the exception of the Cabinet and foreign ambas-
sadors all appointments are. made by him solely.
He can only declare war with the approval of
Parliament and his veto on Bills can be over-ridden
by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The Houses of Parliament are two, the upper elected
mainly by nomination, the Icfwer by representation
from the provinces. In theory this body exercises
all legislative functions and has complete financial
control. In practice it has been scarcely at all in
operation, the Cabinet having nominally exercised
supreme power under the direction of presidents,
premiers or war-lords. The Cabinet idea is an old
one in China, the Emperors foi^ generations having
surrounded themselves with a group of councillors
responsible for different departments of govern-
ment. During the Manchu supremacy a military
council was created, and exercised far greater power
than the civil council, which became a mere orna-
ment in the machine of State. Not until the last
year of the Manchu dynasty was the military
council abolished. According to the provisional
constitution the Cabinet is the organ for executive
functions and is responsible to Parli^^ment. Under
Yuan Shih Kai it was utterly subservient to him.
Under his successor it, or the Prime Minister acting
for it, became supreme, and the President had
simply to accept its advice as does our King. This
battle between President and Cabinet has bee'h
one of the chief issues in the recent history of
China, but it must not be supposed that the
Cabinet has generally fought for parliamentary

96 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

suprema^cy. It has rather fought for its own hand
as against the President. More often than not it
has been the tool of one of the war-lords* It is
very doubtful whether Chinese pojitical ideas have
yet developed so far as to make full parliamentary
government practicable.

The chief diflScultie^ seem to me to be lack of
mutual confidence springing from lack of men of
public spirit and strength of character in the higher
offices, a wide-spread system of peculation which
is by no means coming to an end with, the estab-
lishment of a Republic, indifference of the people
generally to the problems of politics, largely due to
lack of education and information on public affairs,
domination of the situation by a few men with
large resources of money and soldiers, and last but
not least, continual influence of foreign countries
affecting the political situation and making steady
government almost* impossible. In this last con-
nection we must mention the lack of a sound
financial policy. Foreign interference in connection
with the many loans required is thus almost
inevitable.

To me it seems that the following lines of policy
should be followed if China’s internal affairs are
to be straightened out : ^

1. It is essential that in some way the civil
authority should be separated from the military,
and that the army should not be allowed to domi-
nate policy. It looked as if this might be on the
point of happening a few months ago when Wu
Pei Fu, after military victories that put him in
control of the central government, called Li Yuen
. Hung back to office, summoned the old Parliament
and retired to Pao Ting Fu with the assurance that

^ See also the latter half of Chapter XI, where fuller suggestions
are given.

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 9T

he did not wish to interfere in politics, but only
to see that constitutionalism got a fair chance.
Unfortunately his profession has not been followed
by his practice.

2. Provincial autonomy over a very large range
of subjects seems to me to be desirable. I do not
think the Southern and Western provinces will come
in on any unified system unless they are largely
autonomous, and even if a single centralized govern-
ment were desirable, with the present imperfect
transport arrangements and with the long history
of internal warfare, I think 4ime would have to
elapse before it could be e8taT)lished. In tha mean-
time there seems to be no hope of unity without a
large measure of local autonomy.

3. It is of first importance that foreign interfer-
ence should be reduced to a minimum. In the
present financial situation, it is hard to see how
China can reorganize her national life without
foreign credits, and these are not likely to be given
without some form of control over certain aspects
of Chinese life. But I feel this should be reduced
to the minimum, and I think the greatest danger
to China’s peaceful development lies in the con-
tinuance of the past policy where China has been
the victim of international jealousies and ambitions.

4. What I have already said will show how great
is the need for education for citizenship throughout
China. I do not think that this need wait for a
complete system of primary and secondary educa-
tion to be established, with enough school places
for all the population, highly desirable as this is.
There is very much to be done in adult education
through lectures and special schools and literature.*
Much more attention needs to be given to the type
of education given. A true understanding of the
country’s needs and her position among the nations

7

98 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

of the world should be given to the people generally
— and I would say that very many are able to
assimilate such ideas. They should be the basis
of a truer patriotism and a keener political con-
science. A movement similar to the Workers' Edu-
cational Association in this country would be of
great value. In this task I think the Christian
forces have a very important part to play, and it
is a notable fact that among the younger men who
are coming to take a leading and honourable part in
public life, a surprisingly large proportion are the
graduates of Christian institutions and in a number
of cases actually Christian men. Such education
should be directed both to the development of a
thoughtful electorate and to the creation of leaders of
character and ability. It seems to me that a modified
form of the old civil -service examination system should
be set up, definitely directed to discovering talent
in dealing with economic, social and international
questions in a broad and far-seeing way. This
would seem to be in line with China's own past
experience, and if carried on without graft and
favouritism would be as likely as any other method
to give a chance to the many young men and
women of ability and public spirit who are growing
up in China and are eager to serve her.

5. The speedy adoption of a constitution seems
to be an urgent need. So long as there are disputes
on that matter it is hard to get on with the business
of State. I should advocate setting up a constitu-
tion for a definite period of, say, ten years and
giving it a fair trial, but making it quite easy to
revise it after such an interval. By this means
‘China would have a chance to settle down and see
how far she could adapt herself to democratic insti-
tutions. A constitution so adopted could be accep|;ed
even if not felt to be ideal because it was known to

99

THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA

be an experiment. At the same time the experi-
ment should be given a fair trial by all concerned.
As already stated my own view is that it should
provide for a very large provincial self-government.

Perhaps it is unwise for a foreign observer to
venture on such specific suggestions as the above,
and I do so with deference. I see in China’s present
position grave cause of aVixiety both for herself
and for the rest of the world. The unity and the
good government of China are matters of interest
to all of us, for an unsettled and weak country
only gives fresh opportunity, for exploitation and is
a constant temptation to the worst elements in
other nations. It is far more likely, in my view,
that a weak and distracted China will lead to war
in the world than that a strong and healthy China
will do so. I must leave till a later point the reasons
which lead me to feel hopeful about China’s future.
To look at the last ten years pnly may well lead to
disheartenment. I hope to be able before we close
to give good reason for a different view. In the
meantime no good comes of closing our eyes to the
darker facts.

CHAPTER VI

f

JAPAN IN CHINA

We must now discuss one of the most difficult of
all the questions conpcrning China’s relationships
to foreign Powers. We have already seen how
Japan, ill conquering China, gained a hold over
Korea, and how, in conquering Russia, she won
a place for herself in the Far East which she steadily
continued to use to her own advantage. The way
in which Japan threw away her chance of helping
China is one of thg greater tragedies of history.
She had brilliantly adapted herself to meet the
entirely new world situation in the midst of which
she found herself at the dawn of the Meiji Era.
She had drawn her inspiration from many different
quarters, and had been able to take her place
among the great nations of the world as one of
themselves. Some measure of adaptation there must
be, if nations are to live together and work together
in this complex modern world. This much Japan
saw ; and her Elder Statesmen, representing the
great families *which had come to control the
country, were wide enough awake to act with
vigour and promptness when the crisis came.
Because in some important respects Japan copied
the worse rather than the better side of European
life, we have no right to blame her. She had to
copy the worse side in order to save herself from

exploitation and very possibly from dismember-

100

JAPAN IN CHINA

101

ment. It is very usual now to bold up Japanese
imperialism and all its ways to scorn and criticism,
I am no defender of this aspect of Japanese policy ;
but one must be fair to Japan and admit at the
outset that she was driven into it by Europe, and
that it was the quite obvious reaction of an alert
people to the environment in which they found
themselves when they emerged from their long
isolation.

In an incredibly short space of time Japan
equipped herself to meet the West with its own
weapons. She threw her emergy into the creation
of a commercial system and an industrial machine
that could compete with Western business houses
and so build up the material basis of a new army
and navy. She went to Germany to remodel the
former and to England for creating the latter. She
began to think in terms of economic imperialism.
She saw that coal and iron were the sinews of war
and must be secured on the Asiatic mainland as a
supplement to her own meagre supply. She learnt
that in modern warfare the only defensive that can
hope for quick success is a vigorous offensive. She
saw that pledges given under one set of circum-
stances were often broken when the circumstances
changed or when the contracting power thought it
safe to break them. She learned the arts of our
secret diplomacy and learned them very well. She
even saw that patriotism was an all-powerful asset
to the political prestige of a country, and she set
about the deliberate fostering of a peculiarly forceful
type of patriotism, virtually manufacturing a reli-
gion and falsifying her own history in order to
give it the highest possible sanction.^ The whole
course of events in Japan during the last fifty years

* See The Invention of a New Religion^ by B. H. Chamberlain,
and Democracy and the Eastern Question, by T. F. Millard, pp. 18 fE.

102 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

proves not her special moral depravity so much as
her amazing power of learning the lessons which
Western nations were teaching her all the time, not
by their professions, but by their actions in the
Far East.

I shall have some hard things to say about
Japanese policy, and no good purpose is served by
keeping silence about il ; but I cannot see that
any European nation can cast a stone at her in
regard to these matters, and even the United States
can scarcely throw more than a pebble. Had
Japan been Christian in a sense in which no nation
is, I imagipe that she might have found some other
way of maintaining her self-respect and possibly
her integrity as a nation. But certainly there was
no historical or contemporary example to guide
her in finding such a course. It is also possible
that with great wisdom, patience and self-restraint
she might have copied the example of the West
just enough to resist aggression, but not so much
as to become a menace to others. But the study
of the psychology of nations makes one wonder
whether this really was a possibility without some
great change of heart among the people generally.
These are vain speculations. The fact remains that
Japan did the obvious thing for any alert and
virile people. She saw she must, adapt herself to
meet the new situation and she did it thoroughly —
relentlessly.

I have said that when Japan threw away her
chance of befriending China, one of the great
tragedies of history was enacted. But I do not
wish by that to suggest that the Japan we see in
her international policy during the last seventeen
years is the Japan I should have wished to see as
China’s counsellor and friend. I mean rather that

Japan which could have seen that opportunity

108

JAPAN IN CHINA

would have been the Japan that might have helped
China to solve her problem in a finer way than
Japan has met hers. For there are two Japans,
as there are two Germanys, two Englands and two
Frances. Before - I close this subject I must speak
of the true Japan, and we must consider what hope
there is of that change of heart to which I have
referred. Now we must pass to a consideration of
events, only cautioning ourselves against judging
too harshly on the basis of these alone. I shall
deal with them, for the sake of convenience, under
the following heads : Korea ; Shantung and the
twenty-one demands ; China^s entry into the war ;
Japan’s special position ” in China ; financial pene-
tration ; the demoralization of China ; and events
subsequent to the Great War.

Koeea.

I have already tried to explain why Japan, if
actuated by the motives that ordinarily govern
international activities, could not afford to see a
weak Korea liable to be controlled by any other
power. The Korean Government had become cor-
rupt and inefficient. There did not seem to be
any hope of improvement. Russia was becoming
a dangerous neighbour, China was unable to handle
any problems but her own. Japan’s course seemed
quite obvious. All this we must admit. But such
a presentation of the case gives ,no justification
for many of the incidents connected with the
Japanese regime in Korea. These have been fully
set forth in various books, and I do not think any
good purpose will be served by repeating the
details. Step by step Japan tightened her grip x>n
Korea. She made treaties only to mark stages iii
the process of assimilation, abrogating one after

104 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

another as opportunity offered. She got her excuses
for this policy, as often as not, in some folly com-
mitted by the Korean Government or people. In
fact she copied, with remarkable skill and with a
more complete result, the methods which, as we
have seen, European nations had used in their
dealings with China and her dependencies. The
nervousness shown by ^he Japanese Government in
the notorious conspiracy case could be paralleled
by the experience of other imperial powers, such
as the French action in unearthing a so-called revo-
lutionary plot in Madagascar a few yeais ago, and
perhaps some not very distant episodes in the
government of India. The methods of torture
used to extract the kind of evidence the police
desired are not much less inexcusable than certain
events at Amritsar, though they were in themselves
a terrible example of what a bureaucratic and
militaristic government can do with a subject
people. Wherever 8ne goes in Korea to-day one
sees the effects of this systematic and terrible repres-
sion of a people. A very deep rift has been made
between Japanese and Koreans, and it is almost
certain to my mind, that Korea never will be satisfied
to accept Japanese rule. The non-violent demon-
strations of the whole people in 1919 were an elo-
quent witness to this fact. As I am only referring
to Korea incidentally in so far as Japan’s policy
there bears on the Chino- Japanese situation, I do
not propose tp attempt to describe even this
remarkable movement. It is enough to say that it
was an expression of the determination of Koreans
never to acquiesce in the Japanese rule. The
leaders of the movement, acting under the strong
influence of Korean Christians, did their utmost to
prevent violence. They issued these instructions : —
“Whatever you do, do not insult the Japanese,

JAPAN IN CHINA 105

do not throw stones, do not hit with your iGists,
for these are the acts of barbarians.’*

The demonstrations united men, women and
children throughout the country in a proclamation
of independence containing the following words : —
We herewith proclaim the independence of
Korea and the liberty of the Korean people. We
tell it to the world in witness of the equality of
all nations and we pass it on to our posterity as
their inherent right. . . . We have no wish to find
special fault with Japan’s lack of fairness or her
contempt for our civilization ♦and the principles on
which her state rests ; we, who have greater cause
to reprimand ourselves, need not spend* precious
time in finding fault with others. . . .

** Our part is to influence the Japanese Govern-
ment, dominated as it is by the old idea of brute
force, which thinks to run counter to reason and
universal law, so that it will (jhange, act honestly
and in accord with the principles of right and truth.”

One can scarcely imagine a more dignified or
truly Christian protest against what Koreans felt
and feel to be a great moral wrong, Lhe attempt,
that is, to take away the nationality of the people
and to bind on them a hateful yoke. The appeal
was to the better mind of Japan, stimulated largely
by President Wilson’s noble utterances about the
rights of smaller nations. Towards the close of
the proclamation we read : —

“ To-day Korean independence will mean not
only daily life and happiness for us, but also it
would mean Japan’s departure from an evil way,
and exaltation to the place of true protector of
the East, so that China, too, even in her dreams,
would put all fear of Japan aside. This thought*
comes from no minor resentment, but from a large
hope for the future welfare and blessing of mankind.”

106 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

This splendid appeal was met by terrible measures
of repression. The Japanese authorities showed
no mercy, and, to the infinite disappointment of
the Koreans, the Western nations took scarcely
any notice of what was happening, partly because
the facts were not generally known, partly because
Europe was engrossed with the making of a so-
called Peace Treaty at Versailles, and partly because
no government wished to criticize Japan’s treat-
ment of her dependency, some fearing no doubt
that such criticism might prove to be a boomerang.

Japanese statesmen* have very skilfully covered
over the facts ; they have stated that the reforms
introduced in August 1919 were really in contem-
plation when the independence movement broke
out in March and were thereby delayed.^ But the
facts cannot ultimately be concealed, and Japan’s
handling of Korea in this and a number of other
matters simply canijot be explained away.

It is perfectly true that the Japanese occupation
has meant great material prosperity. In ten years
the area under cultivation increased by 75 per
cent., the mineral production by 300 per cent., the
railway mileage by 100 per cent., the Government
schools by almost 100 per cent. During the ten
years from 1910-1920 over 160 million trees have
been planted in the great re-afforestation schemes.
Law and order have been maintained, brigandage
has been put down, sanitation has been improved.
But the one 'thing Korea asks for, the present
Japanese Government has no intention whatever
of giving. The new Governor-General, Baron Saito,
with whom I discussed the whole question when
i:q Korea, is a man of liberal education and really

^ Even if these reforms were contemplated before the outbreak
they are in no sense an adequate answer to the Korean demand
for independence.

JAPAN IN CHINA 107

interested in the good of the people. The policy
of Japanization is being pursued in a kindly way.
Torture has nearly, if not entirely, come to an end.
There is an appearance of peace and plenty. I
believe Baron Saito is quite honest in his belief
that the Koreans cannot govern themselves, and
is trying to govern them in their own interests and
not simply in those of Japan. So much the inde-
pendence movement has taught the governing mind
of Japan. What would happen if again the people
expressed their demand I dare not predict. But I
failed to find among prominent* Japanese in govern-
ment positions any idea whatever that the duty
of Japan might be to fit Korea for independence.
Few seemed to see that autonomy within the Empire
was even possible. The prevailing idea was that
Koreans might in some distant future send repre-
sentatives to sit in the Diet in Tokyo. I could
not fail to draw comparisons l^ptween the British
in Ireland and the Japanese in Korea.^

So far as China is concerned the effect of the
object lesson may be summed up as follows : —

1. China has seen what Japanese official promises
are worth and how little she minds breaking them.
Repeatedly did she covenant to observe Korean
independence. It is questionable whether she ever
meant to observe it.

2. China has also seen how little Western Powers
are concerned to see that justice is done to a subject

' Personally I cannot see how independence could at once be
given to the country without very grave loss. 1 believe a temporary
Japanese occupation, in a different spirit, and with a declared and
steadily pursued objective of independence within, say, ten, fifteen
or twenty years, might be the best thing for Korea. I very much
doubt if Korea could now produce statesmen able to handle th*^
very complex problems of her relation to other nations, and I think
independence would only mean virtual dependence on some other
Power. At the same time I do not see any immediate prospect
of the kind of Japanese tutelage I desiderate.

108 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

race, even when a great and practically unanimous
national appeal is made to them.

3. China has seen what she takes to be a revela-
tion of the real Japan, the military, domineering
Power which stands over her, threatening her very
existence. Japan will have to do things very
differently before the object lesson of Korea is for-
gotten in the Far Ea^t.

Shantung and the Twenty-One Demands.

It is commonly supposed that the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance automatically brought Japan into the Great
War. Japanese statesmen have themselves put
forward this view. A closer reading of the alliance
and a study of the actual facts do not support
it. Viscount Ishii stated in America that the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance did not, as a matter of
fact, involve Jap£v:ii in the European War. Her
object in coming in can be easily read in the light
of events. It was a unique opportunity for tighten-
ing her hold on China. She was determined not
to let German rights in Shantung pass into any
other hands than hers. By becoming a belligerent
she could easily oust Germany, and gain a foothold
in the third of the three great peninsulas that
command the entrance to the Chinese capital.
Europe was very busy with her own affairs. While
she fought, Japan could lay her hand upon China.
This she did *with steady persistence. Germany’s
rights in Shantung she claimed as the just reward
of her conquest, saving her face by a promise of
ultimate return to China. This gave her control
jf the railway where she at once replaced Chinese
• officials by Japanese, and placed many more guards
on the line than Germany had done. In fact it
was quite obvious to all who knew the facts that

JAPAN IN CHINA

109

Japan meant to stay in Shantung. The policy in
Korea which I have described gave additional
support to this view.

Not, however, ,until the presentation of the
infamous twenty-one demands was the hand of
Japan fully disclosed. This act is now seen by
many Japanese statesmen to. have been a terrible
mistake. I have myself talked with one member
of the Cabinet which presented these demands and
heard him say that he regarded his action in this
matter as the greatest mistake in his life. In fact
he has publicly recanted his {)articipation in this
act. These demands were divided into five, groups.
Their original form was greatly altered and they
were at first kept secret. In their original form
they may be described as follows : —

Group I deals with Japan’s demand to take
over all the German rights in Shantung, insists
on the opening up of fresh centres for foreign trade
in the province and concedes to Japan the right
of further railway construction.

Group II deals with Manchuria and Eastern
Inner Mongolia and is designed to increase the
hold of Japan in these regions. Further mining
concessions are foreshadowed and the Japanese
Government insists on being consulted in regard to
loans and concessions and appointment of advisers
involving any third Power. That is to say Japan
claims absolute priority, not to say a monopoly,
for her enterprises in this part of China.

Group III claims Japanese partnership, which
would really be predominance, in the famous
Hanyehping Iron Company and the mines upon
which it depends and other others in the neigh-
bourhood. This concern is the most prosperous
one of the kind in China and commands some of
the richest supplies.

lia CpaiNA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Group IV is a single article in which the Chinese
Government agrees not to cede or lease to any
third Power any harbour, bay or island on the
Chinese coast. (To appreciate the full significance
of this apparently innocuous demand, imagine France
trying to force upon England a treaty by which
the latter would ag|;ee not to cede any Channel
port to a third party !)

Group V demands the employment of Japanese
as advisers in political, military and financial
matters, Japanese participation in the Chinese Police
Service, the purchal^e of a large proportion of her
ammunition from Japan, and certain other financial,
mining and railway concessions.

The presentation of these demands was carefully
timed when Europe was pre-occupied with the war.
£t was proceeded with in a most high-handed way.
An incorrect and modified version was all that was
allowed to go t(x the public. Finally, acceptance
was demanded at forty-eight hours' notice backed
by a threat of war. Before this ultimatum was
launched a few modifications had been agreed to.
China had no military strength with which to resist.
She could not get any other country to give her
any material assistance. She was compelled to
embody in treaties all the points on which Japan
insisted, save the last group, which China never
accepted and Japan never withdrew until the
Washington Conference nearly seven years later.

By this means Japan, following the example set
her by European nations, gained “ legal sanction ”
for her aggression in Shantung, extended her hold
over China’s resources and territory in other direc-
tions and virtually stepped into the position of
paramount Power in Chinese affairs. Had the
fifth group been accepted China would, to an even
greater extent, have given up her independence.

JAPAN IN CHINA

111

It is a matter for great satisfaction that it has now
been finally withdrawn ; for it was hanging, as
Putnam Weale put it, like a Sword of Damocles
over China’s head.

In the final form, then, in which the treaties
were signed, Japan’s demands seem much less
objectionable than they were at first. It has even
been urged that the more extreme statement (and
in 'Tf)articular the demands of Group V) was made
in order that Japan might have something to
bargain with. This may be true, but if so it
was a serious tactical mistake. Japan, by this
action, roused the spirit of the whole nation in
bitter antagonism, greatly aggravated 'A^hen the
ultimatum was presented. Later modifications did
not remove this first impression, and China will
not for many a long day forget what she felt as
so bitter a humiliation and affront. Japan’s true
policy would have been to wii^ the confidence and
friendship of China. These she sacrificed and these
it will be very hard to regain.

China’s Entry into the Great War.

Passing over certain other negotiations, let us
look at the way in which the peculiar ambitions
of Japan in regard to China affected China’s policy
when she was asked to join America in breaking
off diplomatic relations with Germany and finally
in declaring war. There again China was the
catspaw in a game in which she was bound to
suffer.

Quite early in the war China made a proposal
to enter as one of the Allied nations. This was
her last resort, after trying other methods by whicJfir
she might be a partner in driving Germany out of
Shantung, so avoiding the alienation of the German

112 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

rights in that province to Japan. This proposal
was not entertained, Japan, as we have seen,
having ‘‘ other fish to fry/" It appears to have
been turned down by Great Britain, but what
reasons were given I cannot sa/. It was China’s
last effort to become an active agent in the disposi-
tion of her own affairs in Shantung. Mr. Millard
gives particulars of this and two other attempts
by China to come into the war prior to the end of
1915. On the last occasion Japan revealed her
hand, and urged that developments in China were
a paramount intercstt to her, and '' must keep
a firm hand, Japan could not regard with equani-
mity the' organization of an efficient Chinese army
such as would be required for her active partici-
pation in the war, nor could Japan fail to regard
with uneasiness a liberation of the economic acti-
vities of a nation of 400,000,000 people.’" ^

To those who studied the Far Eastern situation
it became increasingly clear that a victory for
the Allies would mean that Japan would gain a
firmer hold in China. It was in order to avoid
this, and not in order to oppose German aggression
and to protest against her methods of warfare,
that China finally came into the war. It may,
however, be questioned whether even in this matter
she was well advised. When America severed her
relations with Germany she advised other neutrals,
and China among them, to follow her example.
Japan was opposed to China’s taking such action,
partly because she did not wish to have China
represented at the Peace Conference. In one of
the documents published by the Soviet Govern-
ment this matter is very clearly stated, and there
-Viscount Motono, on behalf of Japan, expressed
his willingness to urge China to come into the war

^ Saturday Evening Post, April 28, 1917.

JAPAN IN CHINA

118

only if the Allied Powers would support Japan in
respect of Shantung and the Pacific Islands. The
other Allies, however, and individual citizens of
Allied countries who had weight with the Chinese
Government, continued to urge China forward.
Mr. Blythe, an American who was in Peking at the
time, has thus described the campaign : —

“ For hours and hours, d*ay and night, Peking
resounded with speeches to timid Chinese made by
these urgent Americans and the two invaluable
Australians (Dr. Morrison and W. H. Donald),
urging, forcing, begging, cajoling and shoving the
Chinese who were needful to toe the mark. There
was no rest. There was no soft-pedal business.
It was a big, hard, two-fisted campaign, and he who
dallied was a dastard and he who doubted was
roundly damned.’’ ^

Many Chinese, especially the young foreign-
educated men, doubtless belie\^d that China, in
following America’s lead, was taking a step for
international right. The note sent to Germany
(February 9, 1917) explicitly based China’s action
on this ground. But the real influences at work
were the pressure of foreign nations, in particular
America, whom the Chinese regarded as pacific
and as a friend of their own, and the desire to have
a seat at the Peace Conference in order that China’s
claims in Shantung might be recognized. China
had not any real interest in the war issues as they
were seen by us in the West.

We have already seen how the actual declaration
of war by China became the source of a very
serious crisis in China's internal affairs, and led
to the division of North from South, which has not
yet been fully healed. Looked at from China's
point of view I cannot feel that she had anything
* Saturday Evening Post, April 28, 1917.

8

114 CHINA Dir THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

to gain. Japan was again opposed to the action
in the first place» not from consideration for China,
hut for reasons similar to those already given.
Japan had, however, succeeded in extracting pro-
mises from her allies of their support of her claims
in China and on the strength of these she was more
ready to advise China to proceed* China was
assured by her new fellies that they would stand
by her in true friendship, but all the time .tihey
had entered into secret pacts to support Japan in
despoiling her — all, that is, save America, who,
as events showed, w/is unable at the Peace Confer-
ence to make good her protestation of goodwill.

In Mr. Millard's review of the situation, in spite
of his strong sympathies with America in bringing
China into the war, I find an opinion of a Chinese
of high standing which has been wonderfully borne
out by the event. He said to Mr. Millard, among
other things : —

“ I think I have'^observed among the other nations
a disposition to consider their own positions and
interests, and so we Chinese may be excused for
thinking first about this war in terms of the interests
and security of China. You say we can trust the
United States, especially President Wilson, to get
justice for China at the Peace Conference. As to
that, your Government has always talked very
well about China, but at the pinch it usually has
left her in the lurch by refusing to take any active
part in aiding her, or even to enforce your own
policies here. As to President Wilson, he is but a
man and will die in time, and his time of office ends
in a short while. . . . We do not now trust Great
Britain or France, because of their apparent accept-
ance of Japan’s policy towards China. We cannot
afford to repose trust in the United States xmtil it
proves to us that it has the will and the power to

JAPAN IN CHINA

115

help us. . . . Separated from Great Britain and
France we do not believe that America will be
strong enough to put a check on Japan/’ ^

Thus while many of the best minds in China
were opposed to *the policy, while it was certain
to strike a terrible blow at China’s unity and at
the development of democratic government and
give new power to her own internal enemies, the
military chieftains, China was hurried into the
war by her so-called friends. Well might she pray
to be saved from her friends. Germany could
have struck' her no blow whick compares with that
dealt her by the Allies.

Japan’s Special Position ” in China.

Japan followed up the successes gained with
the European Allies by sending a special envoy to
America. It was very important for her to secure
from the United States some recognition of her
paramount interests in China, in order, if possible,
to prevent American interference with her schemes
when the Far Eastern question came under discus-
sion at the Peace Conference. The plans for securing
this are revealed in another of the documents
issued by that indiscreet Government in Moscow !
A despatch from the Russian Ambassador at Tokyo,
October 22, 1917 states that in the negotiations
by Viscount Ishii (the envoy referred to above)

“ the question at issue is not some special conces-
sion to Japan in these or other parts of China, but
Japan’s special position in China as a whole.” In
the light of this revelation we read the famous
Lansing-Ishii Agreement — (November 2, 1917).

This document was to have been published simul-*
taneously in Tokyo and Washington. By breaking
^ Op. cit., p. 128,

116 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

the terms of this arrangement Japan put it out in
such a way as to make it appear as a diplomatic
triumph for herself. The carefully-worded clause
in which Mr. Lansing believed he had uttered no
more than a platitude was, by a^* slight mis-transla-
tion into Chinese, made to appear like a concession
of all that Japan asljed for. The clause read as
follows : —

The Governments of the United States •und
Japan recognize that territorial propinquity creates
special relations between countries, and, conse-
quently, the Goveiliment of the UAited States
recognizes that Japan has special interests in China,
particularly in that part to which her possessions
are contiguous.”

The publication of this document created a
sensation in Peking and throughout China. Here,
it seemed, was America, her one friend, stepping
aside and giving J^pan a free hand in the exploita-
tion of the country. Her worst fears seemed to be
justified.

Mr. Lansing did his best to correct what seemed
to be clearly a misapprehension caused by the
methods I have described. But it cannot be said
that he was wholly successful. The Chinese are
too accustomed to the method of denying in public
what you affirm in private. The shock had been
administered, and Japan seemed to have gained
all she wanted. An agreement touching her at a
most vital spot had been concluded between two
of her allies without even consulting her — and one
of those allies was her last hope in regard to the
redress of her grievances at the Peace Conference.

We shall see in the next chapter how Japan
followed up this advantage, and how Versailles
confirmed the worst fears of China in regard to
the worthlessness of professions of friendship, even

JAPAN IN CHINA

117

from her best friend. What we have already seen
has served to show to what an extent China has
been used by the Powers in the last few years,
and how step by, step Japan has secured a posi-
tion which the Chinese feel to be threatening their
very existence as a nation. Is it any wonder that
anti -Japanese boycotts have- spread to every part
of China ?

CHAPTER VII

JAPAN IN CHINA {continued)
Financial Penetration

The methods of economic imperialism which have
been perfected by the more industrialized nations
of the West have been taken over in recent years
by Japan and applied very thoroughly in her deal-
ings with China. In this action Japan has aroused
the enmity not only of Chinese but also of other
foreigners in China. This, as we shall see, is due
partly to the fact 'that Japan has become a very
active and efficient commercial competitor, and
partly to the fact that she has not kept to the
agreements she has made in regard to China. Japan
seems to Western merchants not to be “ playing
the game,’’ even this common game of grab, for
which there are certain rules, more or less observed,
among the great commercial nations of the West.

It will be convenient to give a rough classifica-
tion of the methods of economic imperialism as
seen in China, the order corresponding in a general
way to the actual developments in history.

1. The first stage is to bring one’s wares and to
try to open up trade. If, as in the case of China,
the country does not wish to buy one’s goods, she
must be made to see, by force if necessary, that
she cannot afford to refuse them. The process is
especially blameworthy where the goods are actually
harmful as they were in the case of opium, but

JAPAN IN CHINA 119

I cannot myself regard it as defensible even where
the goods are useful.

2. The uncertainties of such trade when it
depends upon the occasional visits of ships from
abroad and the aSvantages that come to the mer-
chant from living in the country with which he
trades, or sending his agent ,, there, create a demand
for ‘‘ rights of residence.” This leads to the opening

“Treaty ports ” where foreigners may trade and
live, and to the leasing of property, known as a

concession ” or “ foreign settlement,” where the
foreigners can make their o\fn arrangements and
live in their own way.

3. The fact that the laws of China dre very
different from those of Western lands, are ill-
administered in many cases and involve punish-
ments which we regard as cruel and unjustifiable,
leads to the further demand for extra-territoriality
— that is to say the “ right ”» to administer the
law of the foreign State in the settlements and the
exclusion of all subjects of foreign nations from
Chinese law. This brings them under consular
jurisdiction and involves an imperium in imperio,

4. In view of the perplexing state of the internal
and external customs of China, a further demand
arises (1842) for a fixed tariff, and this, being fixed
by the foreign nations, is arranged in the interests
of increasing their trade rather than in the interests
of the revenue of China. If we assume the right
to trade and the right for fair conditions of trade,
this tariff interference may seem to be inevitable,
but we have only to consider how England would
feel if France tried to insist on certain tariff
limitations, to realize how Chinese feel on this
question.

5. In order to see that these tariff regula-
tions are put into force in a country where the

120 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

central government is weak, the oversight of the
customs is put under foreigners and thus, beginning
with the time of the Taiping rebellion, we see a
vast system built up throughout China, managed
by foreigners (under treaty regulations) and yield-
ing a large revenue to China. This revenue subse-
quently becomes the sepurity for interest on foreign
loans

6. A further stage is reached when China begins
to think of opening up her natural resources, build-
ing railways, factories and harbours. The sug-
gestion for such enterprises has again come from
the foreigner, and he must be called in to supply
the braiils, the materials and the capital. Treaties
provide for such concessions and the companies
concerned claim and obtain certain “ rights ” in
order that they may have security for their invest-
ment of capital. Moreover these treaties in certain
cases include clause»s specifically stating that the
material must be bought in the country whose
citizens receive the concession or make the loan.
Thus a monopoly in the interest of one nation is
created in one place, and for another in another
place.

7. These “ rights ’’ having been secured by treaty
and thus given a certain legal validity, whatever
we may think about the moral sanction, it is quite
obvious that they must be insisted upon even if
in doing so individual Chinese suffer. Not to do
so would be to set international law at nought I
If debts are not repaid they must be collected and
military measures are thus justified. It is fairly
certain that in a country that has resisted all these

> It is only right to add that the customs service has been adminis-
tered by high-minded men, who have genuinely worked for China’s
good. It has a fine record, and if all foreign interference in China
were of this order there is no doubt China would be thankful for
the help given, rather than resentful and afraid of it.

JAPAN IN CHINA

121

advances and does not really believe that this
foreign trade is an advantage to her, there will be
cases of vigorous resistance and even repudiation of
the “ rights ’’ obtained as stated.

8. It is not, howfever, only for economic develop-
ment that loans are required. The government
itself needs money in order to protect China against
this continuous encroachment. Where can she get
it ^but from the countries that are menacing her ?
So large-scale loans for public purposes have to
be raised. The income from the customs, the salt,
and the post office must be# mortgaged to pay
interest and redemption on such loans. So . the
shackles become heavier in the very effort to shake
them off. Big business, big banking houses, and
big governments with big forces behind them
stand ready to assist China according to the pro-
gramme of the vicious circle, and on the principle
of each for himself and the dqvil take the hind-
most, It is not necessary to suggest who is the
hindmost in this instance.

9. It is a very easy stage from this to the policy
of spheres of influence ” which, as we have seen,
was followed for a few terrible years by the Western
Powers in their dealings with China. It was little
less than an agreement among thieves, and they
seemed only to be waiting their chance to swallow
up each his allotted morsel.

10. It was at this point that the situation was
relieved by the statement and acceptance, with
more or less reluctance, of Mr. Hay’s policy of
the open door. Some Powers did, I believe, wish
to see this policy definitely adopted and honestly
maintained. Japan and Russia do not seem to
have been among those. For Japan there was
every excuse. She had seen the Western Powers
rushing in on their prey. What reason had she to

122 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

think that they really meant to deal differently
by China ? Was not this simply a new phase in
Western h 3 Tpocrisy ? At any rate so far as the
Power nearest to her was concerned there was very
considerable ground for such a surmise. It is true
that for a short period prior to the war with Russia,
Japan did espouse the ^policy of the ojpen door, only
to deny it (in practice though not in theory) as
soon as she had replaced Russia in ManchuriiT.

11. The policy of the open door led to that of
the consortium. No longer was each nation to be
rushing in to gain separate advantage; by making
loans, which on account of the supposed poor
security •are always at rates very advantageous to
the lenders. Obviously this cut-throat policy would
not in the end work to the advantage of foreign
investors. How far the desire to see it modified
in China's favour really influenced things I am
unable to say. Itr was a case where self-interest
and the interest of the client did seem in some
respects to be identical. However, the terms offered
to China were not much better, although investors
virtually had for security (1) the assurance that
the combined efforts of all the great capitalist
States would be used to see that China paid up,
(2) the immense wealth and resourcefulness of the
Chinese people themselves, and (3) agreements
whereby a first charge on China's richest revenues
was to be the meeting of these foreign obligations !
Nevertheless, loans are concluded on terms that
give frequently a return of 7, 8, 9 or even 10 per
cent, and not infrequently at a price of considerably
less than 100 per cent., and in such a way that large
flotation expenses are allowed, for the government
or borrowing party receives say only 90 or 96 per
cent, of the total sum subscribed or of the nominal
capital.

JAPAN IN CHINA

128

12. The agreement for loans only by a consortium
of the banks in the main lending countries has
always been difficult to arrive at and enforce. China
has felt that she ,was only being exploited on a
larger scale and that she could no longer play off
one country against another. She has very natu-
rally feared a complete financial dictatorship. There
has often been some party ready to offer what
China felt to be better terms, as in the famous
Crisp loan (1912), concluded in face of the agree-
ment for the common action by all the Powers.
Japan in recent years has gained an undesirable
reputation as being more ready to break thrwgh
any such understanding than was any othef Power.
Mr. Millard gives a list of no fewer than 55 loans
made by Japan to China between 1909 and 1918.^
A good many were short term ones and have been
repaid frequently by contracting another “ reorgani-
zation loan,’’ discount and expenses being collected
again and again when such loans had to be repaid
and reorganized.

13. The final stage in this progression seems to
be a large measure of economic dictatorship. The
policy of the country comes under the influence of
the Power or Powers who have the largest financial
interests. One may say that no country now thinks
in terms of annexing China or parts of China,
unless it be Japan with regard to Manchuria and
Eastern Inner Mongolia. But annexation is too costly
a process if the same result can be obtained in other
ways. The aim of economic imperialism is financial
profit to be made out of the country. It is quite
possible to jnaintain that China will in the end be
better off through economic interchange with other
countries, and that much of our merchandise goes
to raising the standard of living and increasing the

* Op. cit., pp. 187-92|

124 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

happiness of Chinese. But we should indeed be
self-deceived if we allowed ourselves to suppose
that China’s interests have been the dominating
motive in this long process. I have seen displayed
on the walls of a Chinese city the advertisement
of Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People. Now
it is quite possible that pale Chinese may benefit
by taking the pink pills. But T cannot stretch my
imagination so far as to think of Dr. Williams 'as
a Mndly philanthropist eager to bring back the
colour into the faces of pale Celestials. He, whoever
he may be, is in China in order to secure some of
the'l^w ^coins possessed by these same pallid persons
to distribute among the shareholders in his com-
pany. Nor can I think that the British-American
Tobacco Company adopts the slogan a cigarette
in the mouth of every Chinese ” because it has any
deep conviction that the Chinese will be the better
men physically or rfiorally for using British-American
tobacco. No, we must admit the motive is gain,
and it is still true that an evil tree cannot bring
forth good fruit. Although there are many honest
foreigners doing business in China, and although
not a few of these really do want to serve China
and have come to respect her people and to feel
with them in their difficulties and distresses, the
financial penetration of China is, taken as a whole,
a poor way of bringing China into the family of
nations.

This record raises in an acute form the question
as to what are the sovereign rights of a free people.
How far is a nation morally bound by treaties
which secure by force the so-called rights of other
nations, — rights which the people of the nation con-
cerned regard rather as wrongs ? But these issues
carry us too far afield for our present purpose.

Now Japan, as I have said; has seen how Western

JAPAN IN CHINA

125

nations got into China. In her own ‘‘spheres of
influence ” and outside them she has steadily and
skilfully pursued the same policy. She has not
infrequently beaten the West at her own game.
In certain respect^ she has used methods which
Westerners do not like to admit that their Govern-
ments ever use. For example, in Manchuria there
has been a system of espionage, accompanied by
ipany •tricks which are plainly underhand, for keep-
ing out foreign trade. Here is one instance out of
many. An American travelling for his firm commits
his case of samples to the Japraiese-managed South
Manchurian Railway ^ only to have it returned ,g'f^r
much delay without a single sample in it.* There
are too many instances of such happenings for them
to be written down as mere coincidences, or due to
the work of isolated criminals.

Japan, too, is always on the spot. Her nationals
move in and out in China in a \^ay that Europeans
and Americans cannot. She watches the situation
far more closely, and this was, of course, specially
true of the war period. For these reasons China
fears Japanese aggression even more than she fears
that of Europe or America. The growing hold of
Japan, through finance, on the political situation
in China, is felt as a very real menace to China’s
development. This is peculiarly felt by the younger
and more democratic element, because they see
that Japan is concerned to prevent her neighbour
from becoming a successful republic. They argue,
not without reason, that, as Japan has built her
financial and political success upon a very pro-
nounced type of autocracy with emperor-worship
at the centre, she will not be pleased to see the

^ This railway company is really a general exploiting company
with mines and trading rights, and is controlled by the Japanese
Government.

126 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Bister country show a better type of civilization
under democratic institutions. Such an example
would naturally give impetus to the revolutionary
elements in Japan. Now Jap^ese statesmen can
point to China and say : “ See what a failure

democracy is in an Oriental country like ours.
Clearly it is not suited to our conditions.*^

There is therefore a strong case for those who
would use Japan’s economic advantage t(f keep
China relatively weak, and it is not always easy
to persuade even enlightened Japanese that their
country’s true policy is rather to strengthen China
and-^help it to become stable both financially and
politically.

Japan’s apologia is well stated by Viscount
Motono in an interview in September 1917, when
he said that Japan had adopted the policy of econo-
mic imperialism in self-defence and as a precau-
tionary measure, aad would be prepared to abandon
it if the other principal nations would do the same.^
All I can say is that Japan has not had any ade-
quate proof that this condition has been met, and
that therefore it is unfair to single her out for
special blame.

At the same time it is true that Japan has staked
out enormous claims in China, that she has used
her power in a way that virtually closed the door
which was professedly open, and that Chinese feel
that she is, at the moment, their most dangerous
neighbour. This is not to say that Chinese have
any convictions that the motives or policies of
other nations are better than those of Japan. The
exception is in the case of America, which, as we shall
see later, has won the regard and confidence of China
in a rather special way.

' Millard, op. cit., p. 259.

JAPAN IN CHINA

127

The Demoralization op China.

It is now unfortunately necessary to refer to
another matter in which Japan has gained an unen-
viable reputation. •Britain's record first in forcing
China to receive opium and then in bringing this
evil traffic to an end has already been mentioned.
Those who look upon China mainly as a market
are vgry critical of this second act which they
maintain was a piece of foolish idealism pressed
by a few misguided faddists. This side of the
picture can be looked at in Band’s Recent Events
and Present Policies in China (chapter xv). Biassed
as this presentation is, and containing som^ seriJus
misstatements, I think it should be read by any
student of the question as saying the best that
can be said for a thoroughly bad case. Even sup-
posing Mr. Bland’s argument that opium never
can be eradicated from China to be true, it remains
a matter of deep thankfulness l3hat Britain is no
longer a gainer by that which brings misery and
degradation to many millions in China. It cannot,
however, be forgotten that for many years mer-
chants of British nationality, though many not of
British race, were making huge profits from this
demoralizing trade. It was not simply an instance
of trade for private profit but of trade that actually
did harm to the country concerned. The fullest state-
ment of the matter is to be found in Mr. Joshua
Rowntree’s The Imperial Drug Trade, written before
the trade was ended.^

Since the formal closing of the Indo-Chinese
opium traffic Japan has stepped into the shoes of
Great Britain, and vast quantities of the drug
(largely in the far more dangerous form of morphia)

' See also several interesting allusions in J. A. Hobson’s lAJt
of Cobden,

128 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

have reached China in recent years, through the
Japanese post office, and through Japanese pedlars
and minor traders. Very careful reports have been
gathered from all parts of China as to the preva-
lence of the morphia habit, and no one can fail to
be convinced of Japanese complicity in this matter,
when it is seen how the chief areas of the use of
the drug correspond with those where Japanese influ-
ence is strongest. I should not, myself, assuiyie that
the Japanese Government deliberately fostered this
trade, which is mainly illicit. Nevertheless, as a
certain direct reven^^e comes to the State, a definite
bla^e is thereby fixed upon it, and I do not think
tlie Government can be acquitted of culpable negli-
gence. The Chinese draw the not unnatural con-
clusion that Japan is trying to keep China weak by
deliberately pandering to her well-known weakness
in this matter.^

This conclusion seems to be supported by another
very disquieting fact, I mean the introduction of
many Japanese prostitutes into those parts of China
where Japan is paramount. Here again, and even
more emphatically, I would acquit the Government
of a deliberate design for undermining the manhood
of China. But young Chinese feel this matter
most keenly, and if Japan is to win back the con-
fidence and friendship of China it is high time she
dealt vigorously with this traffic in vice. I am
not, of course, saying that China is free from the

social evil.” A reading, for example, of the recent
admirable Social Survey of Peking shows in what
way it thrives in a purely Chinese city as part of

^ One must sincerely hope that the recent action of the Leagoa
of Nations will mean a large reduction in the export of opium
and ita derivatives from Japan to China. At least it gives Japan
a chance to show whether she really cares for China’s good in this
matter or not. It is, of course, too soon to say how she interpret
and enforce this action. Cf. Millard, pp. 207-17.

JAPAN IN CHINA

129

the national life and quite independent of any
foreign influence. But there are ways in which
Japan has practised the evil which have been
unknown in China, and there can be no doubt that
the introduction oJ Japanese customs into China
has put fresh temptation in the way of Chinese
young men.

Another charge made against Japan is that she
has used the Chinese bandits as a means of keep-
ing up internal disorder, and that these persons
are constantly supplied with Japanese arms and
munitions. This is certainly » commonly believed
among Chinese. Personally I have no evide^^ce
which proves the official complicity of Japan in
this unlawful traffic, though it seems quite clear
that individual Japanese traders are prepared to
make profits out of the sale of arms which they
know will be used to continue the state of unrest
in the country. I should not b^ prepared to credit
the accounts of Japanese soldiers in disguise
co-operating with Chinese bandits, as meaning
anything more than that there are bad characters
in the Japanese armies as in all others, and that
they are ready to gain through the unsettled
state of a country where there is much irregular
fighting. Similar instances could be found, for
example, in Ireland and need not be taken as
meaning government complicity in such actions.

One further point that may be mentioned is the
undoubted fact that Chinese carrying on unlawful
trade in drugs and other things frequently seek
and obtain Japanese protection, especially in the
province of Fukien. Japan is not alone in this
matter, but I think there is no doubt that she is
the chief sinner, partly, no doubt, because many
Chinese (e.g. in Formosa) are Japanese subjects.

A more serious charge is that Japan has been

9

1«0 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

ready to make loans to Chinese militarists or sec-
tional governments with the object of keeping up
internal strife, so preventing China from form-
ing a strong united government. Discussing this
question with well-informed Japanese the charge
was virtually admitted, while I was assured that
Japan’s policy in thv^ matter had now changed,
and that she intended only to allow her subjects
to lend, or herself to lend money to a government
that represented, as far as could be ascertained,
the whole of the country. If Japan has come to
see that it is to het* own interest to have a strong,
friendly and united China rather than a weak,
embittered and disunited one, we shall certainly
see a very marked change in Japan’s policy in the
next few years. Before giving my reasons for
hoping that such a change is actually taking place
let me bring the story of Japan’s relations with
China up-to-date ^nd summarize the position as I
found it during my recent visit, so that the extent
of China’s distrust of her powerful neighbour may
be vividly realized.

Events Since the Close of the European War.

China, as we have seen, purchased at a great
cost her right to a seat at the Peace Conference
in Versailles. Was the gain worth the price ? All
the world knows what happened in those epoch-
making days as the dictators of the world drew
new maps, J^xed economic conditions, determined
the fates of peoples, as if they were playing a game
of chess. China was one of the victims of the
policy of opportunism and revenge and self-grati-
fication that laid the foundations of the post-war
world on shifting sand. Japan played her cards
with consummate skill. She was determined to

JAPAN IN CHINA

131

maintain her hold in Shantung and to get the
imprimatur of the Allies for her predatory acts*
One can scarcely fail to be amused by the theory
advanced by Japan in regard to Port Arthur,
Manchuria and Shantung that the death of Japanese
soldiers on the soil of a foreign Power with whom
she was not at war should §ive a certain right to
her to hold that territory as her own. It is as if
England had claimed that the blood of her soldiers
who died at Waterloo gave her a presumptive right
to take Belgium into the British ^mpire ! However
little argument could be found to support the jposi-
tion, Japan gained her point. President Wilson
had just stood firm over Fiume and driven Italy
out of the inner circle. I suppose he felt that by
a similar and no less obviously just stand over
Shantung he would drive out Japan, and this he
could not afford to do. Everything must go in
order that the League of Nation?} might be set up.

Whatever the reasons, the result was utterly
disastrous. I was in Paris shortly after the fateful
decision had been made and heard the story of
its reception by the Chinese delegation, from several
who were present. The news was brought while a
dinner was in progress. It came from a Press
representative. So absolutely did the Chinese rely
on the friendship of America and her power to see
justice done that the first message was not credited,
and Mr. Lansing was called up and asked if he
could confirm or deny it. Although it had reached
the Press, Mr. Lansing knew nothing about it.
Nevertheless the incredible was true. Japan’s
“ rights ” in Shantung were to be ratified by the
world. One Chinese flung himself on the floor in
a paroxysm of despair and rage. One of my infor-
mants told me how he looked across the table at
a military attach6 trained in a Western military

182 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

academy. He saw an expression come into his
face that could not be mistaken. He was registering
a secret vow to devote every ounce of his strength
to the sacred task of building up in China a
military power so strong that China would have to
be listened to in the councils of the nations. The
appeal to justice haA failed before the court of
humanity. China’s millions must now try the only
other way and speak in the one language the Inodern
world could understand.

Throughout Chin^i there was utter dismay. The
news seemed not simply like the death-knell to
Oiiina and the beginning of a period of unlimited
Japanese exploitation. It spelled for China the
utter hollowness of the professions of the Allies in
their high-sounding war aims. This “ Christian ”
West stood before the eyes of ‘‘ Heathen ” China
condemned, by her own voice, of hypocrisy and
callous indifference to the plain justice of a weak
and long-suffering nation’s case. China had trusted
to the goodwill at least of America and of the
better mind of England. Her trust was misplaced.
Could she ever trust again ?

People who speak enthusiastically of the triumph
of the Washington Conference do not remember
the background on which it had to work. Think
of the long history of Western and Japanese aggres-
sion culminating in the great betrayal of Versailles,
and the hard-won gains at Washington seem but
a minute compensation for this long tale of wrong.
Is it to be expected that all at once China will
accept this one small step as the sign of a complete
repentance on the part either of Japan or of the
West ? Against great opposition and with a pathetic
further appeal to the sense of justice of the great
Powers, China urged the reconsideration of her
claims at Washington. At last it was agreed that

JAPAN IN CHINA

188

they might be discussed outside the actual meeting.
Japan finally accepted a considerable part of the
Chinese claim, and agreed, for a consideration, to
hand back to China the Grerman “ rights in
Shantung and to Withdraw the unratified demands
of Group V. But these gains seemed to China to
be wrung out of a reluctai\t Japan who yielded
them only because the conscience of the West was
at last* aroused, and when very strong pressure was
brought to bear upon her. I was told in Japan
that there had been an intention by the govern-
ment from the beginning to yi^ld this much, and
that she did not at once state her willingness
because she feared that there would be a gpirit bf
bargaining and that she would have to give more
than her first offer. This may be true, but even
so, I believe she would have been well advised to
come forward with a generous offer, and so do
something to create a new psychological situation.
As it is, the feeling towards Japan has been but
little bettered by Japan’s yielding, partly for the
reasons stated and partly because at the same time
Japan showed herself more unyielding on the ques-
tion of tariff -re vision than any of the other Powers.
In this matter China put forward claims that were
not at all unreasonable, and that would have met
with a much more reasonable response from the
other Powers, had not Japan insisted on giving China
only a very small amount of what she asked.

It must, therefore, be said that the feelings in
China towards Japan were not materially improved
by the Washington Conference, at any rate up to
last summer, and there still remains the problem
much as I have stated it in these pages, a problem
which must be solved if China is to find the place
she seeks and to which she is entitled in the family
of nations.

184 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Present Position Summed Up.

In 1905, when I first went to China, Japan was
fighting China’s battle against Russia and her recent
policy towards China had been most friendly. She
had strongly upheld the policy of the open door
and of Chinese integritf^. In negotiating the Anglo-
Japanese Alliance, Count Hayashi had said : “ We
entirely agree with the British policy in Eastern
countries. That is to say we wish to maintain the
territorial integrity of China and the principle of
equal opportunity. V ^ The result of this policy,
continued with Japan’s success in war and in
peacefulr adaptation to new conditions, led China
to turn eagerly and even enthusiastically to Japan
for help. Japanese instructors were asked over in
hundreds to the new colleges, military academies
and technical schools in China ; Japanese text-
books were imported wholesale ; Japanese colleges
and universities were crowded with Chinese students ;
Japanese ideas were current through the length and
breadth of the land.

The change came very soon. Students came
back from Tokyo speaking of many indignities
which they had suffered. Japan showed her hand
in Korea, and in other acts. The feeling against
Japan became marked even before the Great War.
Perhaps the revolution was a chief factor in the
change, for the new democratic ideas were clearly
not congenial to the Japanese authorities and Japan
came then under a more direct criticism from some
of those who were leading Young China.

To-day w^e see Japan held up not as the example
to be followed, but as the example to be avoided,
no longer a light to guide, but a beacon to warn.

* Quoted in The, Foreign Relatione qf China, p. 184.

JAPAN IN CHINA 185

This, as we have seen, is due to the following
causes : —

1. Japan’s activities in Korea and Formosa.

2. Japan’s hold cn Manchuria.

3. Japan’s seizure of German rights in Shantung.

4. Japan’s demands on, €^nd economic hold in,

the Yangtse Valley.

5. Japan’s strong influence in Fukien.

6. Tlie belief that Japan is deliberately seek-

ing to undermine the manhood of the
nation. ^

7. The belief that Japan is determined to secure

a prior place in China, to dictate her policy
to her and virtually to treat her as a
subject people.

8. The belief that Japan intends to drain away,

for her own advantage, as much as she
can of the mineral and other wealth of
China.

9. Behind all these causes lies a deep and almost

universal distrust of Japan’s sincerity when
she professes friendliness, coupled with a
sense that Japan, who should have acted
as a brother to her nearest of kin, has
betrayed China and used her advantage to
exploit and dominate her.

Wherever an explanation of any of the above
points favourable to Japan is urged in China to-day
one is met by this distrust which refuses to accept
any but the worst interpretation of the facts, a very
serious and intractable symptom.

Japan’s case can be stated somewhat as follows : —
1. She has a rapidly increasing population which
she cannot (apparently) accommodate on her own
territory. Australia, Canada and the United States
agree in excluding Japanese. Where is she to look for

186 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

expansion if not to adjacent parts of the Asiatic
continent ? How can her nationals go there and
put themselves under a government that gives them
insufficient protection and no adequate security in
their economic enterprises ?

In regard to this point it is argued with a good
deal of truth that, wit»h better methods of culti-
vation and so forth, Japan could deal with her
growing population for at least anothea fifty
years, and also that, as a matter of simple fact,
Japanese cannot successfully compete on equal
terms with Chinese *-nd are not colonizing Formosa,
Korea, Manchuria, etc., in any way that really
solves her population question. The Japanese
Government has to create specially favourable condi-
tions for her colonists, and in the main they are
the capitalists, exploiters, directors and police in
these areas rather than ordinary colonists. That
is to say, Japan is in China and Korea as the British
in India rather than as the British in Australia or
the Chinese in the Straits Settlements.

2. Japan, in order to develop her industries,
must have an assured supply of raw materials
larger than she can get from her own country. She
cannot have this without a direct financial interest
in industrial concerns in the country of supply,
because other buyers would possibly overbid her
and take away what is really her life-blood. More-
over, the holding of large financial stakes in China,
with her present unstable government, is impossible
unless some political guarantee is given, as all other
creditor countries agree. This leads to military
pressure, the stationing of garrisons in areas where
financial interests are large and the demand for
special privileges.

3. Granted that, ideally, it ought to be possible
to secure the raw material needed without using

JAPAN IN CHINA 187

these accessory methods, Japan is faced by the
fact that European Powers have used them, and
she has no reason to suppose that they mean to
desist. Therefore she has an example which goes
to prove that she will be cut out in the China
markets if she herself does not go one better. It
might be urged that China would deal fairly with
Japan if the latter forsook the methods of exploita-
tion, but what reason has Japan to think that her
competitors would do the same ? Would she not
simply be left in the lurch and laughed at for her
idealism in a world of predatoi^ nations 1

4. Waiving the question as to whether Japan has
or has not kept up the internal dissensions
in China, she may well say that her neighbour has
not yet shown that she can deal with her own
internal problems successfully in the light of the
new conditions of the modern world. She is like
a man with a very trim garden, weeded and tended
with meticulous care, whose neighbour lets his
garden run wild. He is sorely tempted to jump
over the wall and root up the dandelions before
they begin to scatter their seeds all over his well-
kept ground. Of course it is quite possible to say
that China regards some of those brilliantly coloured
flowers which Japan tends with infinite care, emperor-
worship, militarism, a narrowly patriotic education,
as nothing but the rankest weeds. But from
Japan’s point of view, China’s failure to work out
any ordered system of government seems a constant
danger right at her doors — a danger which she
regards as justification for some interference.

These four broad classes of reasons cannot, in
my view, justify Japan’s policy, nor do they entirely
explain it. There is in Japan a section who are
blatantly and aggressively imperialistic, which looks
to a Japanese hegemony in Asia and even believes

188 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

that Japan is one day to rule the world. The
Black Dragon Society is the meeting-place and
symbol of such extremists. Their avowed aim is
to dominate the whole of China, to unite the Orient
under the banner of Japan, to challenge Western
supremacy in the world and to become the great
world Power of the future. The ideas of this
society are set forth in Putnam Weale's Fight for
the Republic of China, and I do not propose t© deal
with it in full. I regard it as a phase of Japanese
life, due to her phenomenal success during the last
half century, a case df national swclled-head, similar
to fhat which we saw in a certain section of Germany
prior to the Great War, and similar to what is now
happening in France. I do not minimize its impor-
tance, for, even as in these other instances, it may
have the most disastrous influence and consequences
for Asia and for the whole world. But I do not
wish to assume that Japanese policy has been in
the main directed by these extremists. I think
these are strong reasons, according to ordinary
political reasoning, for such a policy even without
calling in this element. I want rather to show
that there is yet another section of opinion in
Japan, utterly opposed to the idea of the Black
Dragon Society. This is challenging the actual
policy of the government which may be based
much more upon such reasons as the four I have
stated. It is to this group in Japan that I look
with chief hope.

What is the Real Japan ?

I said earlier that there are two Japans. In
fact there are at least three. There is the mili-
tarist, imperialist Japan ; there is the conservative,
constitutional Japan, and there is the progressive,

JAPAN IN CHINA

189

pacifist Japan. The first and second are in
partial alliance, but by no means in agreement.
The third is in an attitude of revolt towards both
of the others. One reason for the apparent con-
tradiction of Japanese policy and for the breaches
of faith in her foreign relations is to be found in
the conflict between the ^rst two Japans. The
constitution is not really democratic. The Mikado
is supreme in name, though actually under the
guidance of the Genro, or Elder Statesmen. These
men, of whom now only two survive, have skilfully
guided Japan through the dabgerous and difficult
waters she has had to navigate since she came ij^to
the family of nations. It is small wonder that
they are respected and trusted and have come to
wield an almost autocratic power. The Diet is
under the leadership of men who, while respecting
the Genro nevertheless are trying to enlarge the
area of real popular government. The late Premier
Hara was an example of such men. Himself a
conservative of the Sciyukai party, he recognized
that popular opinion could not be neglected. He
stood for the civil as against the military party,
but recognized that Japan’s power in diplomacy
depended upon her military efficiency. An instance
of his methods will illuminate the policy of the
constitutional party in Japan. When he took office
for the last time he demanded a change in the law
whereby the heads of the Army and Navy must
always be professional soldiers. He let it be known
that he was not prepared to take office again unless
the right of direct approach to the throne were
withdrawn from these officials. That is to say, he
was steadily working for a fundamental change
which would put the civil power in real control of
Japan’s foreign policy. His untimely death brought
an end to this scheme, but it is to be hoped that

140 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

the big political parties will continue to press for these
reforms. Not infrequently while the civil authority
has given a certain undertaking and followed a
certain policy the military authority has taken an
opposite course and, because of its direct access to
the throne and therefore its power over the budget,
Japan has been “ given away ” in public, and the
military have won the day as against the civil
authorities. Among the younger statesmen in Japan
there are not a few who are deeply chagrined at
any such action and who greatly distrust the mili-
tary power. At the* same time most of these are
unwilling to take a strong line against it partly
because they see that Japan must maintain its
military forces at maximum strength if she is to
make her voice heard in the counsels of the nations,
and partly because they feel that any strong action
will only lead to disaster as such great power rests
in the hands of the militarists.

It is to the third element that I look with greater
hope. The leaders of this section are to be found
among Members of Parliament who are not con-
nected with either of the great parties, labour
leaders and scholars. I have had the opportunity
of meeting a number of these, and I found
them courageous, far-sighted and broad-minded men
who in a number of cases have suffered for their
principles and may at any time suffer again. They
share the aspirations of the progressive leaders in
other parts of the world. They are intensely
opposed to Japan’s imperialistic acts. Broadly
speaking, they are out for a measure of manhood
suffrage, a programme of disarmament, a policy in
Korea that would lead to ultimate independence
(some would go for immediate independence), a
friendly policy in all dealings with China and a
reversal of anything like exploitation and military

JAPAN IN CHINA

141

occupation, a complete reversal of the educational
system so far as it inculcates a purely nationalistic
point of view and seeks to instil material and mili-
taristic ideas, an advanced policy of labour legis-
lation looking, if may be, to some degree of demo-
cratic control in industry, i

I am under no illusion as to the strength of this
party. In the country districts and among the
less educated people it probably has very few
adherents. In the big industrial centres like Osaka
and Kob6 it is strongly supported. A professor in
the Imperial University said that a considerable
majority of the students there would vote for giving
Korea her independence. There are men and some
women of great ability who hold such views as
those I have mentioned. But the dice are heavily
loaded against them. In the last resort the consti-
tutionalists and the militarists would stand together
against them. The Japanese constitution gives
no real power to the democracy. How can they
make their will effective short of a violent revolu-
tion ? That method would not appeal to more
than a very small minority, and could be instantly
crushed by the ruling caste who are vigilant and
relentless. The Press is closely watched and cen-
sored. News of what is happening in China, for
example, only reaches most people in the form in
which the government wish them to see it. There
is little hope of any immediate success for these
reformers. But they have the patience of the
East. They are determined to go on'. They believe
in the power of true ideas. They are touching
some of the most vital points in the life of Japan,
the Universities, the industrial centres, the new
womanhood. I believe their success is not so far
away as their opponents think. I do not anticipate
a sudden change, but I do anticipate a steady and

142 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

a considerable one. The action of Japan at Wash-
ington was in part, at any rate, the result of the
knowledge Japanese diplomatists had of the situ-
ation at home. The leaders of ‘Japan are astute
enough to know that they cannot be altogether
independent of popular support. There is an increas-
ing and increasingly vocal minority whose opinions
are having a slight, though appreciable, effect upon
the policy of the country. China’s hope of coming to
her own in the Par East — the hope, indeed, we all
may have of a stable and just peace between these
two countries — crests very largely on what this group
is Uble to accomplish in the near future. I believe
that we cannot understand the real Japan only by
studying her international acts or her internal legis-
lation. We must try to pierce beneath the surface.
The whole life and spirit of Japan have been
shaken to their depths by the strange and difficult
experience through which she has passed in the
last half century. What she has done to meet
the demand is nothing short of marvellous. She
has saved her body politic from disaster. Can she
now save her soul ? On the answer to this question
hangs the fate not only of Japan but also of China
and it may be of many another nation. Because
I believe in that possibility I am not without hope
for the Far East.

CHAPTER VIII

, CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA

Having given Japan a somewhat large share of
attention let us come back to Qfhina’s relations with
European nations and with America. We ^ have
already seen how these relationships were es^ablishTed
and we have traced the stages by which economic
imperialism has fastened its hold upon China during
the last eighty years since the first opium war. We
may just remind ourselves of the following facts : —

1. The ruling factor in the opening of China has

been economic — the desire for trade expansion
on the part of Western nations.

2. China has not, in the main, welcomed the

approaches of these nations.

3. The relationships of China and the West have

been vitiated by the fact that these nations
were stronger in a military sense, and could
insist on their views at the point of the
sword or in some other brutal way.

4. China’s own weakness, first under an effete

foreign dynasty (the Manchus) and later
under a form of republicanism not yet well
established, has contributed to her exploita-
tion.

5. The concessions wrung from China have been

given legal sanction in treaties to which
China has often been an unwilling signatory.
China has had little reason to suppose that

148

144 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Western nations really believed in justice, in
the broader meaning of the term and where
a weak nation was concerned.

6. Nevertheless China has not yet lost all hope
of gaining justice through open discussion.
She has not yet been driven wholly to abandon
the way of patience, persuasion and reason-
ableness. This is one of the most amazing
facts in contemporary history.

In this chapter I want to review the present position
of China vis-a-vis tht nations of the West and I shall
dp it under the following headings : — (a) Oeneral.
1. Political : extra-territoriality, League of Nations,
etc. ; 2. Commercial : tariff, new consortium, etc. ;
3. Religious ; the missionary movement as a factor
in international understanding. (6) Special : dealing
with certain nations specifically.

(a) General.

1. Political, — ^It is recorded that on April 22,
1919, a week or two before the decision on the
Shantung question. President Wilson thus addressed
the Chinese delegates in the presence of M. Clemenceau
and Mr. Lloyd George : —

“ As soon as the proposed League of Nations is
established, we will give China all our assistance and
aid to remove all present inequalities as well as
restrictions upon her legitimate rights, so that the
Republic of China shall truly become a perfect,
independent, sovereign, great State. , . . Such senti-
ments, I am happy to state, are also shared by
Baron Makino, who will likewise be glad to assist
in this worthy direction.’* ^

During the three and a half years that have elapsed

^ Quoted by Mr. Tyau in China Awakened,

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA 145

since that unexceptionable sentiment was uttered
very little has been done to give efiEect to it. China
is still regarded as a partially civilized minor Power
so far as diplomatici relationships go. The Western
nations send to Peking not ambassadors, but ministers.
In spite of the decision arrived at in Washington to
enquire into the matter, extra-territoriality persists.
An agreement was concluded at the Washington
Conference, the Four Power Pact, most vitally
touching Chinese interests, and China was not even
consulted, much less brought in a partner. China
is still regarded as an outsider, a visitor rather than
a nation with equal voice and equal rights. *The
old diplomacy still exists and is still dominated by
the idea of force. A nation which cannot use that
language is, so to speak, kept on the doorstep.

There is, of course, another side to the question.
China has not succeeded in establishing a stable
government, her finances are in confusion, she has
not reorganized her judicial system so that foreigners
would feel any confidence in being justly dealt with
by Chinese courts, she still needs loans from foreign
banks. And debtors cannot be choosers. It is con-
fessedly very difficult to make good that promise
of President Wilson's, and if steps were taken too
hurriedly it is more than likely that the creditor
nations would suffer, and that China would therefore
fail to get the assistance she herself is asking for.
But well-informed Chinese recognize these difficulties,
and are not asking for impossibilities. What they
do ask for is that they may be let alon6 and allowed
to work out their own problem, even if it should mean
passing through a stage of even greater disorganization
than at present. They feel, and I think they are
right, that the process of reorganization has been
retarded and made more difficult by the other members
of the family of nations, and that China has never

10

14« CHINA IN THE FAMILIk OF NATIONS

had a fair chance. The circumstances leading to
her entry into the war are a notable example of this
even in very recent years.

The directions in which China’s sovereignty is
limited beyond that of other States are summed up
by Mr. Bau under the following heads : —

1. Extra-territoriality and consular jurisdiction.

2. Settlements and concessions.

3. Leased territories, such as Kowloon, Port

Arthur, etc.

4. Spheres of in'Juence or interest.

6 . Limitations due to the working of the Most
^ Favoured Nation Clause, e.g. the inability
of China to effect changes in her relations
with foreign Powers, without the consent
of all.

6. Restrictions in regard to the tariff.

In some of these matters no limitations need be
implied if there was reciprocity in the arrangements,
as for example in consular jurisdiction, but such
reciprocity has not been granted in recent treaties
(except those with Germany, Austria and Russia
since the war). Some of these matters are co-related
BO that it would be difficult to change one without
involving a change in another. If the system of
treaty ports is to be abolished, for example, it could
only be done along with a surrender of extra-territorial
rights, because consular jurisdiction over any number
of people resident far away from a consul with very
little effective control and poor means of communica-
tion would open the way to grave abuses. While
there are certain obvious risks involved in granting
to China a complete release from all these galling
limitations on her sovereign rights, my own view is
that it would be a wise policy to take these risks and to
make a somewhat rapid progress towards the complete

CHINA, tUROPE AND AMERICA 14T

removal of them all. I believe that such a policy
would help to stimulate China to do her best to justify
such a trust, that^it would create a new sense of
confidence in the’ goodwill of Western nations ;
and that it would come nearer than the present state
of things to the essential ri'^hts of the case.

There is one direction in which a real advance has
been made towards the recognition of China’s true
place m the life of the world. This exception is in
the one place where the old diplomacy is giving way
before the new, namely, in thc^ League of Nations.
While China recognized from the beginning the value
of this idea and while she was eager to be a participant
in the League, it must not be supposed that Chinese
statesmen cherished any illusions in regard to its
possibilities. One of her delegates at the Peace
Conference, when told that China must look to the
League of Nations to redress the Shantung wrong,
observed that : (1) “ The ruling force in any League
constituted at this time will be the same major
Powers that composed the Council of Five at Paris
and which made the decision in the Shantung question ;
(2) It is not logical to assume that a League of Nations
created by the same body as the Treaty and in con-
junction with the Treaty, is designed to reverse the
terms of the Treaty ; and (3) It is only the so-called
weak nations that are asked to depend for justice
and security upon the League of Nations, while the
so-called Powers openly decline to rest their own
positions and security on the League alone and plainly
regard its assurance to be insufiRcieht.” ^ . . . This
may sound rather cynical, but it has been largely
borne out by the event and shows the usual shrewd-
ness of the Chinese in seeing through a situation.

China refused to sign the Treaty with Germany
because of its inclusion of the Shantung decision,
1 Quoted by Tyau, op. cit., p. 328.

148 CHINA IN THE FAMILY jOF NATIONS

but was able, nevertheless, to come into the League
as a signatory of the Treaty with Austria.
Dr. Wellington Koo was elected by the smaller states
as one of their representatives on^the Council, and on
several of the commissions Chinese have done useful
work. If the new diplomacy displaces the old, if
a new idea of public right takes hold of men’s minds
in so compelling a way as to exorcise the demon of
force and to free men’s minds from the fetters that
fear has made, then China will come to have an
increasing influence^ in international politics. In
fact, one may say that China’s influence is already
being felt in that direction. The persistent appeal
to the p‘ublic conscience in the Shantung affair has
at last won through, and we have an example of
what can be achieved, in the face of great obstacles,
by a nation that goes on hoping against hope that
the justice of her case will make its own appeal
at the bar of humanity. In fact, I think it is not
too much to say, that we have had a foretaste of
the kind of influence which China will increasingly
exert as she comes into the family of nations. While
politically she is still not fully accepted in the family
and while it is difficult to see how she can be so
accepted until certain internal changes have been
effected, we can see that China already has a peculiar
place in the family, even politically, and is doing
something which nations usually accounted stronger
cannot so effectively do.

2. CommerciaL — China’s own industrial problem
must be left 'over till the next chapter. Here I
must deal with her standing as an economic factor
in the family of nations. During the last thirty
years the foreign trade of China has increased
enormously, by something over 500 per cent. It
has also changed in certain very interesting directions.
Imports and exports have risen together, and China

CHINA, ^UROPE AND AMERICA 149

in 1919 exported goods of very nearly as great a
value as her imports, that year was, however,
an exceptional one in this respect. In the main her
exports are raw i^aterials and her imports manu-
factured goods, but the rapid increase of factories
during the last ten or fifteen^years has brought about
a distinct change in this respect.

In 1879, tea was the chief export, being nearly 50
per cent, of the total, and silk came an easy second
with 40 per cent. In 1919, tea had dropped to 4 per
cent., silk to 22 per cent., other ^textiles appear at 10
per cent., and oil-seeds, oil-cakes and vegetable oils
take a large place with nearly one quarter of the
entire output and a total of about 150,000,000 taels
value. Another large item is skins, furs, etc,, at
about 4 per cent, of the total. This change means
also a shifting of the areas of supply and thus of the
regions in China of maximum economic prosperity.

In the matter of imports in 1879 nearly one half
was opium, and now, so far as the official records
are concerned, opium has practically disappeared
and tobacco comes up to 4 per cent. In the matter
of foodstuffs China is practically self-supporting, as
the imports and exports roughly balance. One-third
of the imports in 1919 was composed of manufactured
cotton goods, a proportion that is likely materially
to decrease as Chinese factories are multiplied.
Machinery, varied iron goods and hardware occupy
a large place in the import schedule. A fact
of very great significance is the rapidly increasing
place that Japan is taking in the percentage of trade,
although, of course, the rate of increase has been
materially checked by the persistent boycott during
the last few years.

This brief summary will give some idea of the
nature of China’s place in the economic world. She
is a consumer of manufactured goods and of certain

ISO CHINA IN THE FAMILY jpF NATIONS

raw materials which cannot be obtained locally
or in sufficient quantity to meet the demand. Of
these latter mineral oils are perhaps the chief. It
is certain that China will develop ifcidustries which will
decrease the demand for certain classes of foreign
manufactures. For sonx^, such as machinery, dyes,
drugs, etc., which require more highly specialized
industries there is likely to be a steadily increasing
demand as China becomes more settled and the scale
of living rises. One may say at present that Chinese
workers live on not more than one -tenth of the
income required by a worker in America. If there
shpuld be, with the growth of industries and a settled
government, a great increase in the prosperity of
the country, it is certain that this difference will
become less and less. That means that China will
buy, for many 3^ears to come, very largely indeed
from other more industrialized countries. It would
not be suprising if Shanghai became the most
important trade centre in the world within say fifty
or a hundred years. It is the port which gives access
to a larger population probably than any other in
the world. Its position at the mouth of the Yangtse
is extraordinarily favourable, although, of course,
many ocean vessels now pass Shanghai and proceed
to Hankow or other ports far up the Yangtse. It has
already been selected as one of the most favourable
sites for factories, as raw materials can easily be
delivered there from China or from foreign countries
and there is a plentiful supply of cheap labour.

At present Chinese factories cannot turn out much
more than supplies the local demand, except in one
or two special lines. But there is no doubt that this
position is being rapidly changed. Chinese labourers,
man for man, when given proper conditions, are not
inferior to those of any other country. I was told
in Shanghai recently that the delicate work on

CHINA, IIJROPE AND AMERICA 151

filaments for electric light bulbs is better done by
the Chinese workers than by Americans. This is
in a factory where ^he Chinese are given conditions
which compare favourably with those in other
countries. When one considers the scale of living
and, therefore, the rate of wages, it is easy to see that
Chinese manufactures are certain, as they expand,
to enter into very keen competition with those of
Europe* or America. Already American raw cotton
is brought to China, spun into yarn and reshipped
to America to be made into piege goods to be sold,
in many instances, in China. If this double transport
is justified by the low cost of labour in China* it, is
certain that the time is coming when Chinese factories
will carry the process further, and thus cut out the
intermediate process in America. Western nations
have made war on China in order to open up a market
for their goods. British and other workmen have
shed their blood that Chinese people might buy
their products and so virtually pay their wages.
The time is drawing near when the British worker
will be threatened with starvation because the
China, opened by his efforts, is underselling him
in the home market. The British eapitalist who has
directed the policy has also been keen enough to
see which way the cat would jump. He is in China,
in Shanghai and other great cities, there building up
the factories which will thrive when the home ones
are starved out. Individual capitalists in Britain
and other Western nations will, of course, be left in
the lurch ; but there are not a few v/ho will be the
gainers rather than the losers. The British capital
invested in Chinese factories is in some measure
an insurance against the time when Chinese industry
cuts out British industry, not only in China, but in
the markets of the world.

This is a black prospect for the peace of the world.

152 CHINA IN THE FAMILYl OF NATIONS

The British working-man is not lik’aly to take it lying
down even if the capitalist has insured himself
against loss. There is no knowii^j what the develop-
ment of this situation may mean* for inter-racial and
international relations. It is urgently necessary that
this problem should be^seen by far-sighted persons
on both sides of the world in order that the solution
may be sought not in defensive measures, in tariff
wars, or in inter-racial conflicts, but in a new spirit
in the world family and in the adjustments which
good-sense and go^d-will may be able to devise.
Such thoughts as these lead one to look for far-
re^^ching changes in our whole social order and for
a far deeper infusion of the Chritian spirit in order
that China’s fuller entry into the family of nations
economically may not spell disaster for humanity.
In the next chapter we shall deal with the first of
these matters. With the second we must deal in
the following section.

Before going on to this point, however, let me
touch on two other questions that come under the
heading of commercial intercourse. One of the
chief ways in which China feels that she is hampered
by her foreign connections and the treaties that have
been exacted from her at various times is in the
matter of the tariff. According to these arrange-
ments China can only make her own tariff within
certain very restricted limits. It so works out that
she has to accept such a tariff as the nations which
trade with her may mutually agree upon. She
cannot use her- tariff as a means of making any trade
bargains with other nations which may erect impass-
able barriers against her exports. She cannot
discriminate between different kinds of imports
such as luxuries and necessities, nor can she, where
a good chance presents, increase her duties for revenue
purposes. The reason advanced by the trading

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA 168

I

nations is that they need a fixed rate in order to
justify large experditures on setting up a new trade,
for such outlay wVuld not be justified if the trade
might at any moment be brought to a standstill
by an exorbitant tariff. ^ To show how much
China is handicapped by lack of tariff autonomy
I may mention that, while Japan charges a
duty of 355 per cent, on tobacco and carries
on a Very profitable government monopoly behind
the tariff wall, China can only charge a 5 per cent,
duty. In regard to spirits, Chkia’s duty cannot be
more than 4J(1. a gallon, while we in England charge
no less than 15s. 2d. China’s demand for a re Vision
of this arrangement seems to me, as I havfe already
said, perfectly reasonable. She asked at Washington
to be allowed to raise her tariff from 5 per cent, to
12 J per cent, as a first stage, to differentiate between
different classes of goods and finally, after a
given period, to be granted complete tariff autonomy.
The strong interests that might suffer by granting
these requests, Japan in particular, have been able
so far to prevent more than a very small step being
taken ; but a treaty was drawn up at Washington
which makes provision for a complete overhauling
of the matter and looks to taking a definite step in
the direction of tariff autonomy in China. It is
too soon to say whether this will be in practice as
considerable a step as appears on paper.

There are a few things to be said as to the new
Banking Consortium which bear upon our view of the
whole situation. This Consortium is the expression
of a desire on the part of the powers, and particularly
on the part of America, to maintain the open door
and to avoid a repetition of the scramble for spheres
of influence and special privileges. Japan came in
very reluctantly on this basis, as she was most anxious
to retain her special position in Manchuria and

184 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

in Eastern Inner Mongolia. Finally, however, she
yielded the point to the persistent pressure of England
and America. The Consortium f was formed by
banking groups in America, England, France and
Japan, and each group has the backing of its own
government. The ostensible purpose is to help
China, to avoid international rivalries, but not to
cut out individual enterprise. Loans are to be made
for public purposes and for the great public services
railways, canals, etc., and are to be given to a
responsible Chinese i Government under adequate
guarantees. The chief dangers that I see in this

policy are —

*■

1. That the governments may use default as
a means of securing further special privileges and
finally a kind of international economic control of
China.

2. That the fact that a particular government
in China has contracted the loan, may mean that
united foreign influence is brought to bear to bolster
up that government when the people desire a change,
and so there may be again indirectly undue foreign
influence in China’s internal affairs.

3. That the system of Western capitalism is
thereby fixed upon China so that her social order
cannot be so developed as to avoid some of the evils
of that system. This danger will be more apparent
when we deal in the next chapter with China’s
industrial problem.

On the other hand there are certain real gains : —

1. Japanese exclusive policy in Manchuria and
Eastern Inner Mongolia has received a check.

2. The Powers have formally relinquished the
idea of spheres of influence.

3. A China that honestly seeks to build up her

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA 155

economic and pol^ical structure has a source from
which she can ohltain the needed funds without
raising international jealousies, etc.

We may say, therefore, in reviewing China’s
commercial relations with tfie West that very much
hangs in the balance at the moment and that all
friends of China should watch developments very
carefully and be ready to bring their influence
to bear in encouraging right and restraining
wrong ones. The next ten yea^fs are likely to be
fateful ones for China in her economic relations
with the rest of the world, but ten years will npt
nearly see her through her problems in this matter.

3. Religious Contacts . — This is not the place to
deal at all fully with the manifold work of Christian
missions, but there are certain aspects of the work
which demand attention if we are to understand
the position of China in the family of nations. The
contact of missionaries with China has not been in
all respects a happy one. Although China is
essentially tolerant in matters of religion, she has not
always shown herself tolerant towards missionaries
from the West. This is due to a variety of causes of
which the chief seem to me to be the following : —

(i) The first missionaries came from Western
countries which were seeking to press their unwelcome
trade upon China, These missionaries were suspected
partly because they were unknown and partly because
it was assumed that they were agents of trade in
another form. They suffered, that is, from the
general prejudice against foreigners.

(ii) Roman Catholic missionaries obtained powers
similar to those of Chinese officials. These they
exercised in a way that was not infrequently very
partial to their own converts. Other Chinese joined
the Protestant bodies in the hope (not always without

156 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

foundation) of obtaining support iA their legal affairs
from Protestant missionaries, ffhus missionaries
became mixed up in law-suits /and many Chinese
came to think of them as interfering unjustifiably
in purely Chinese affairs.

(hi) Some of the innovations of missionaries in
themselves aroused suspicion. Hospitals were
supposed to poison patients, orphanages to rob
children of their eyes in order to prepare medicines,
and so forth. Thus a good deal of suspicion was
aroused in the mindj^f of the ignorant, and missionaries,
not always careful to observe Chinese etiquette or
to study the point of view of those among whom
they worked, were the objects of dislike and even
of attack.

(iv) In several cases the murder of missionaries
was made the occasion of exactions, and in one or
two cases of terribly severe exactions, from China.
This, though not the fault of the missionaries, gave
colour to the identification of the missionary move-
ment with the political ambitions of foreigners.

(v) Missionaries have introduced, along with the
simple Christian message, other things which are
open to objection. The whole method of work, the
buildings erected and the organization formed seemed
foreign and gave colour to the idea that missionaries
were in China to denationalize her. One very
unfortunate step, in my view, has been the
introduction of military drill in connection with some
schools and colleges, a practice which, when it was
introduced, was quite foreign to the Chinese idea of
the scholar’s life and which seemed to identify the
missionary with the military aspect of Western
civilization.

While it is only right that we should see in what
directions the missionary movement is open to
criticism and where its association with other activities

CHINA^ EUROPE AND AMERICA 157

has hindered its broad fact remains

that this movement^ the one considerable avenue
of approach to China where Westerners have been
inspired by altruistic motives. There may be an
element of exploitation eten in the missionary
movement, that is to say, it is possible for the
enthusiastic propagandist to look upon men and
women rather as possible converts than as persons,
as means to a certain end, such as building up a
great organization, rather than as ends in themselves.
But this charge cannot be laid agkinst the movement
as a whole. The more one sees those who are iji it,
and the more one knows of the Chinese who h%ve been
helped through it, the more thankful one must be
that there is one point where the West is sincerely
seeking to give its best without thought of gain,
where men and money are being devoted not to
getting returns ’’ but to enriching persons in body,
mind and spirit. Broadly speaking, the missionary
movement is inspired by the thought that the best
thing the West has to offer to China is the religion of
Jesus Christ, that as this possesses the hearts and
lives of Chinese they will be better able to meet
their own problems, personal or social, and that in
the spirit of Christ unity between East and West
can actually be achieved. Pushed as a mere Western
propaganda, the missionary movement would be
doomed to fail before the rising national spirit. If it
meant domination by foreign missionaries or by
foreign methods and ideas it would deserve to fail.
But what is happening is that Chinese are coming to
take the leading places in the Christian movement
in China and that the foreigner is, in most cases,
gladly stepping aside that this process may continue.
No doubt there are cases where the rate at which the
change can be made is differently estimated by the
two sides, but it does not always happen that the

168 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Chinese stand for the more r^id pace. At the
great National Christian Conference in May 1922, the
suggestion came from the foreigners that a council
should be formed consisting entirely of Chinese who
might ask missionaries ^fco act as advisory members.
It was the clear sentiment of the responsible Chinese
leaders that this would be too rapid an advance
which led to the formation of a council in which
foreigners are full members although in a minority.

It is not possible to say that Christianity has yet
fully vindicated its' power to unite the peoples of the
world or to shape our social and national policies.
No nation can be called a Christian nation, and the
Western States have certainly not exhibited the
Christian virtues in any clear way in their dealings
with China. Therefore, we need not wonder if
there is still a measure of doubt in the minds of
Chinese as to the value of Christianity for their
country. But it can be said that many individual
Christian Chinese have been trusted by their fellow-
citizens, that a large number of Chinese who are not
Christians have recognised the ability and honesty of
men trained in mission schools, and that the Church
in China is one of the chief factors making for social
betterment and international goodwill. These state-
ments I should like to support in a little more detail.

(i) Individual Chinese Christians , — Among the most
trustworthy leaders in China to-day anyone would
pick out such persons as the following ; —

Dr. W, W. Yen, a third generation Christian,
and at one time professor in St. John's University,
Shanghai. He has held several of the chief diplomatic
posts, has represented his country in America (as
Secretary to the Chinese Legation), in Germany and
Denmark (as minister), and held office as Foreign
Minister from 1920-1922. It was a matter of common
knowledge in Peking when I was there that his

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA 159

ministry was one where bribes were not accepted.
He was universally admitted to be above suspicion
in this matter.

Dr. C. T. Wang, for some time a Y.M.C.A. Secretary
and still in close touch wit^ this and other branches
of Christian effort. He was vice-Minister of Commerce
and Industry in the first Republican Cabinet, twice
acted as Vice-President of the Senate, represented the
Southern Government at Versailles and was later
appointed by the North as well ; a signal mark of
confidence when the two were in open opposition to
one another ; was chosen to take over the transfer
of the Shantung railway from Japan to China* after
the Washington Conference, a position needing the
most trustworthy personality available, and has
held a number of other public posts.

Dr. Chang Po Ling, a Christian man of very high
character who has been a leading spirit in educational
advance in North China and has founded, among other
schools, the Nankai College in Tientsin, a first-rate
Chinese college on modern lines, unconnected with
any mission and not related to the Church organically
but exerting a powerful religious influence.

Dr. S. T. Wen, Commissioner of Foreign Affairs in
Nanking, who with Dr. David Yui, General Secretary
of the Y.M.C. A. for China, was chosen by the Chambers
of Commerce and Educational Associations to go
to Washington as people’s representative, watch
the negotiations and give an unofficial report to
China. These two men were thus trusted by the
whole nation when they could not place the same
confidence in government delegates.

All these men I know personally. They are but
a few of a goodly number who have gained from
Christian education something which has fitted them
for public service in a marked degree. When we
remember that the Protestant Christians of China

160 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

are but one in a thousand in the population it is the
more noteworthy that so many men are coming from
this small group to share in the leadership of the
new China. Speaking of the way in which loans
were obtained from foreign countries, which were to
be spent in arming China to resist the aggressions of
these same countries, I remarked on the curious
paradox. Here is the true armament forged in many
a school and college, worn not on the body, ^ but in
the heart, the creation of men and women whose
character will win irespect and confidence, and who
will help China not by leading her away from her
distiRctive line of development into the pitfalls of
militarism and materialism ; but who will discover
China’s true message for the world, who will reinterpret
her deepest aspirations and enable her to meet the
West on the highest plane and in the spirit of brother-
hood. Such persons China needs sorely, and the
West, through her missionary efforts, is helping to
create them, a truly notable contribution to the
solving of the problem of China.

(ii) The Church and Social Problems , — The Chinese
Church is only just beginning to express itself, but
already there is a clear evidence that she is not going
to leave the world to go to the devil and calmly save
her own soul. She believes in the Kingdom of God
on earth, not simply as a distant ideal dependent
upon a miraculous visitation, but as that for which
the Church is to work here and now, dependent upon
the degree of her faithfulness to the teaching and
spirit of her founder. In one of the reports for the
National Christian Conference already referred to,
a considerable section is given to an attempt to state
China’s present social problem and the Christian line
of approach to it. Recommendations touch
agricultural life, village communities, technical
training, the reorganization of industry, child and

CHINA. EUROPE AND AMERICA 161

women’s labour, business morality, care of illiterates
and of degenerates, public health, slavery, prostitu-
tion and many other aspects of our social disorder.
A church that boldly tackles these problems is going
to win the confidence of ti^e best people in China.
In the message drawn up solely by Chinese men and
women we read : “ We believe that sin is not only
fundamentally an individual problem, but that
it is als 43 social. We believe that an unjust economic
order, an unrighteous political regime, unfair treat-
ment of any human being, or, of any group, is
unacceptable to the righteous and loving God.” At
the conference the one resolution passed besides ifho%e
looking to the establishment of a permanent council
was that which endorsed the International Labour
Standard and urged its application to China. Thus
at the very beginning of its coming together and
speaking out on any matter at all, Chinese Christianity
makes it perfectly clear that these questions are of
vital interest to it.

(iii) The Church and International Questions , —
One illustration must suffice to show how Chines©
Christians are likely to move in these matters. No
question has stirred China more deeply in recent years
than the aggressive policy of Japan. I found the
country and the Church very deeply moved on this
matter. I made it my aim to discuss the question
with Christian leaders, and I soon found that it would
be possible to bring together a group of Chinese and
Japanese Christians to face the issue in a spirit of
prayer and mutual goodwill. It was a task not
dissimilar to that which some of us attempted during
the war — a meeting of Christians of all nations to
pray for peace and to talk frankly with one another.
It was very hard to get support for such an idea
among British Christians. Chinese Christians did
not find it easy to think of meeting Japanese. Their

11

162 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

feelings had been deeply stirred and they knew their
action would be open to criticism. Nevertheless,
nearly every one of the leading Chinese with whom
I spoke warmly supported the idea, and two such
meetings have been hel(^ where there was the utmost
frankness and yet perfect goodwill and where the
Christian spirit triumphed in a truly remarkable way
over the spirit of nationalism. There was no running
away from the issue or covering it up with sentimental
talk. Some speeches were almost brutal in their
frankness. There ^as a determined common effort
to discover the truth and to find out how the situation
cpuld be dealt with. I am sure the Church in China
isgoingtto make itself felt as a factor in the inter-
national relations of the country and as a factor that
will steadily work for peace based on right relation-
ships.

To sum up then, I see in the Christian movement
in China the chief direction in which China's coming
into the family of nations is being dealt with in the
right spirit. In this sphere she is seeing the West
at its highest point in the persons of devoted and
large-hearted men and women, she is discovering
how she may relate herself to the higher life of the
West and how she may give her best to the West in
the common enterprise of the Spirit. Those elements
in the movement which are open to criticism do
not by any means destroy its value. They should
certainly be dealt with and removed,^ and all that
tends to genuine Chinese leadership and Chinese
thought should be encouraged. In this way Western
nations may help China to see that there are some who
truly believe in China’s own greatness and who seek
her presence among the nations not for the profit

' Anyone who follows missionaiy movements will realize that
this is being done.

CBQtNA, EUROPE AND AMERICA 168

to be gained from her commerce, but for the enrich-
ment of our common life in the one family.

In a few words I must try to bring out the chief
points in the special position of the different Western
nations in China. What I have already said refers
in a broad way to all, but there are some notable
exceptions, especially due to changes that have taken
place since the Great War. These we may consider
best by treating each nation separately.

America , — When I first went* to China in 1905,
there was a boycott of American goods in many
of the large cities on account of the exclusifin of
Chinese on the Pacific Coast. The anti-American
feeling was quite strong. To-day the feeling towards
America is very cordial. I think this due mainly
to the following facts : —

(1) America has stood for the open door policy.
In spite of what was felt to be the betrayal of China
at Versailles for which America was blamed in part,
though not so much as other nations, there is a general
feeling in China that America means to do the right
thing by China. This was strengthened by the
Washington Conference, although America’s entering
into treaty relations with Japan (along with France
and England) was criticized.

(2) America has been less aggressive in a military
sense than other Western Powers and has never been
at war with China, nor sought any territorial
expansion at China’s expense. It is true that America
did join with other nations in the march on Peking
after the Boxer outbreak, but her action in that
matter was less criticized than that of some other
Powers.

(3) The return to China of a large part of the
Boxer indemnity has very favourably influenced
Chinese opinion. It is said that America claimed

164 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

more than her losses, while Britain very carefully
estimated her losses and only claimed a fair amount.
If this be true America has gained much undeserved
kudos for her actions, and it is not right to blame
Britain for not having followed her example. But
in any case American credit has risen immensely
through this action and one constantly hears it
spoken of.

(4) Partly as a result of this act many more Chinese
study in America than in any European country.
Thus many returned students favour America, which
has certainly on the whole treated Chinese students
well/ In fact, I have heard the criticism that certain
Americaii colleges let down their standards for
Chinese. If this is true, I do not think it is any true
kindness to China. Certainly there are Chinese
who have gained high degrees in America who would
not be likely to attain similar distinction in Britain.

(5) Americans generally are more approachable
than Britishers and seem to have less race prejudice.
Whether in the long run their friendship is any
truer it is not for me to say, but certainly they have
a way with Chinese that often compares favourably
with that of my own fellow countrymen.

(6) The large educational work of American
Missions and the work and policy (especially in
encouraging Chinese leadership) of both the Y.M.C.A.
and the Y.W.C.A. has made a great impression.
Both these have been started mainly under American
leadership, although Britain has a certain share in
them. Now they are both led largely by Chinese.

There is no doubt that American policy in China
is, like that of other great industrial countries, largely
influenced, if not determined, by financial considera-
tions. American business has profited by the wars
in which Britain and France opened up China, but
America not having shared in them has escaped the

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA

odium« In some respects the present good feeling
towards America may be rather more than she
deserves, if one may use such an expression. Never-
theless, we in this country should take the lesson to
heart. It is no use to chafe at the facts. On the
contrary we should see that our policy is more deeply
influenced by those altruistic ideas which have cer-
tainly played a real part in shaping that of America.

Britain , — ^The feelings towards Great Britain enter-
tained by most Chinese at the present time are
certainly much less cordial than those towards
America. This is due to the following causes in the
main : —

(1) Past history, especially the opium wars and
Britain’s record in regard to the opium traffic. Her
recent action in bringing this traffic to an end can
scarcely be said to have neutralized the previous
impression.

(2) The Anglo- Japanese Alliance which has led
to the conviction that Japan’s policy in China had
British support and would not have been possible
without it.

(3) The comparison made between Britain and
America in the matter of the Boxer indemnity.^

(4) The way in which Britishers frequently treat
Chinese — an attitude of reserve or of condescension
rather than of free equal friendship.

On the other hand Chinese recognize that British
policy has in certain respects compared favourably
with that of other countries. A Chinese writer
says : “ The policy of Great Britain in China was
characterized in a marked degree by justice and fair
play.” * Her action in bringing the opium trade
to an end even before the specified time has awakened

* Since the above was written this difference has been brought
to an end by the action of the British Government. The pity is
it was not taken long ago. He gives twice who gives quickly.

* Mr. J. Bau, op. cit., p. 142.

l<fe CmNA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

favourable comment. Her business men have a high
reputation for honesty and for supplying goods up
to specification. The work of Sir Robert Hart and
a number of other Britishers in the Customs and
other public services in China has been greatly
appreciated and has done much to enhance British
reputation. Her loyal support of the policy of the
open door is also of good omen. Sir John Jordan
by his friendliness and fairness won his way* among
all classes in China and was a very real asset. Now
that the Anglo- Japanese Alliance has been terminated
and the Indo-Chinese opium traffic finally abolished,
I think there is a good chance of the British position
in China improving. I believe that Chinese and
British have very much in common. Both are
colonizing and trading peoples, both have a highly
developed sense of justice, and are conspicuous for
business honesty. In neither do we see so great a
development of the sentimental and emotional side
of their natures as to outweigh the claims of common
sense. The appeal to reason and to the sense of
humour carries further than the appeal to mere senti-
ment. Peace will always, I imagine, be a more alluring
ideal to the bulk of Chinese than military glory, and I
think the same is true of Britons. If I am right in
this opinion it seems a natural conclusion that Britain
and China between them may do a very great work
for humanity, and that close friendship and mutual
understanding is not only desirable, but easily
realizable. If Britain, America and China could stand
together for peace and righteousness in the world
during the next century they would have an untold
influence in controlling and modifying the war policies
of more volatile and more imperialstic people.^ Much

* I do not want this to be understood as suggesting a close alii-
anee, rather common effort, in which 1 should hope that other
nations would share.

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA 16 T

depends on Britain following a truly democratic
path in dealing with the great nations she is now
governing. Her action in India is closely watched
in China. She must vindicate her belief in the rights
of other nations by her action in her own Empire,
if she is to inspire the confidence of democratic Chinese.
Given this, and a policy of persistent friendliness to
China, there is no reason why Britain should be any
less trusted and respected in China than is America.
These three countries in unity would mean the unity
of more than half the world’i? inhabitants. Such
unity would make for peaceful development and for a
steady widening of the area of democratic control
in industry as well as in politics without violent
upheavals and their consequent reactions.

France . — Not having travelled in the parts of China
chiefly under French influence, I cannot speak much
at first hand of the position of France in China.
As far as my information and observation goes,
I should say there was a good deal of suspicion of
French policy. Her alliance with Imperalist Russia,
and her policy of aggression in the South, have been
open to strong criticism. More recently her rapproche-
ment with Japan and the feeling that she is following
an imperialist and militarist line in world affairs have
brought her under sharp criticism. As France has
joined with Britain and the United States in the new
Banking Consortium and is thus committed to the
generally favourable policy and the open door,
there seems to be a disposition to hope that French
policy, along with British, will become more helpful
in the future. The fact that the Roman Catholic
missionaries are largely French and under French
protection has had a double effect. In regard to the
large Roman Catholic population (about two million)
and many others benefited by the work, it produces
friendly feeling. Outside this area there is antagonism

ids CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

due to the special privileges and status claimed by the
priests in the past and their interference in law cases.
These privileges having been withdrawn this difficulty
is largely removed. The French have established
a Government hospital ih Chengtu which does good
work, and in one or two other ways have shown their
desire to help China. Unfortunately, an ambitious
scheme for Chinese students to come over to France
for combined work and study, which wasr much
appreciated when first adumbrated, has broken
down. Many students were reduced to penury in
a strange land, and there has been a consequent
revulsion in Chinese minds.

Oermasiy , — I think no European nation is more
popular in China to-day than is Germany. This
may seem strange when one remembers German
aggression in Shantung and the fact that Germany
and China have been on opposite sides in the Great
War. It is due in part to the fact that Germany
has been treated by her conquerors in a way that
makes China feel a deep sympathy, a sort of fellow-
feeling. China and Germany were both wronged
by the Treaty of Versailles, both are suffering because
might has overstepped the bounds of right. Chinese
recognize that the Germany of to-day is not the
Germany that arrogantly demanded the concessions
in Shantung. Again, now treaties with Germany have
removed her special privileges, and her concessionf=*
in Tientsin and Hankow have reverted to Chinese
control. The Boxer indemnity was also cancelled
as a result of China’s coming into the war. This
means that Germans are now in China on equal terms
with Chinese. Even though the change has not been
of Germany’s seeking, it has helped greatly in the
reaction of feeling. German merchants are offering
their goods on very favourable terms with long
credits, and the low valuta enabled them at one

CHINA, EUROPE AND AMERICA J/B9

time to sell at a lower price than England or America.
Probably this has been changed since I left China
in the summer of 1922 by the very rapid fall of the
mark. The very fact that there is still a great deal
of anti-German prejudice among foreign merchants
in China tends rather to cause Chinese to look
favourably upon Germans. Their strong sense of
justice is awakened and they incline to side with
the “ bottom dog.” It is a question whether the
gains which have come to Germany through the
surrender of extra-territoriality and other privileges
may not in the long run outweigh the losses.

Russia . — Twenty years ago Russia was the cnost
feared of all the European nations. Her steady
encroachment on China right up to the gates of
Peking, her uncanny power of seeming a friend,
while acting as an enemy, had aroused a deep resent-
ment and distrust. Soviet Russia has abandoned
this policy. Russians have now no special privileges.
Many Russians are destitute and depend upon charity.
China sees in Russia another country suffering at
the hands of militaristic and capitalistic nations and
making a daring experiment in a new form of
government. It is surprising to find how Bolshevik
ideas have spread among young Chinese not mainly
because of the methods of violence used, but because
Young China sees in Russia a bold attempt to throw
«off an outworn system and to break with traditions
that have hampered her progress. China is in many
ways similar to Russia. She has a largely peasant
population, poorly developed industries and resources,
and a people but little touched as yet by modern
education. Is Russia blazing a trail that China,
in her own way, may follow ? Such is the question
that students and thinkers all over China were
asking when I went out at the end of 1920. While
in China I noticed a certain change which came from

I'to CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

a niller knowledge of the Bussian experiment and
from further consideration of the problem. The
more thoughtful leaders seemed to be turning away
from Bolshevik ideas, fearing the violence and
extremes for a people like China, while still much
attracted by the original communistic idea.
Capitalism is very generally criticized by the Chinese
democrats and no considerable experiment in any
other way of modern industrial development has been
made in the world. This gives Russia a certain
standing in the eye^ of Chinese and creates what can
only be called a glamour that tends to make a true
judgment diflScult. My own view is that the good
sense of ©China will increasingly turn away from the
Russian model as far as method is concerned, but that
Chinese thinkers will be constantly using the measure
both of success and of failure in Russia as a guide for
their own country in facing a problem in some ways
strikingly similar to that of Russia. To this question
we must return in the next chapter as we consider
the industrial situation in China.

CHAPTER IX

TEE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA

We have reminded ourselves of the very rapid growth
of foreign trade in China, of the consequent develop-
ment of Chinese industry and the effect of these
changes in the relations of China with the rest of
the world. We have now to consider the consequent
changes in China’s social structure and in the common
life of her people, and to estimate the effect of these
changes in her future development.

In some respects the changes in China are similar
to those with which all students of the industrial
revolution in Europe are perfectly familiar. The
movement from the land into large centres of
production has begun ; home industries and open-
air occupations are giving place to factory life with
the consequent effects on health ; there is a tendency
for certain crafts to die out and for the joy of individual
creation to be lost ; a large wage-earning community
growing up and gradually becoming class -conscious
with the consequent dangers of class-war ; the scale
of living is rapidly increasing with little if any increase
in the joy of life. These and similar changes, taking
place at a rate far greater than in most other coun-
tries and with the additional irritant of their being
caused by foreign interference in a country where
change has been almost unknown, are producing
results the full effect of which it is very difficult to
estimate or forecast. My object is to present them

171

CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

in sucli a way as provide a starting point for further
study as the drama unfolds itself. A necessary
preliminary is a brief survey of China’s original
social and industrial life

The problems that China is facing to-day can
never be understood unless it is always remembered
that the family is the social, the industrial and the
political unit. The family is of the patriarchlM type,
including in one home several generations, for the sons
bring their wives back to live in the family home-
stead and do not, as a rule, set up their own home.
The 'place of the family in Chinese life is something
which a Westerner only gradually comes to under-
stand and appreciate. In fact, it may be said that
no Westerner can fully understand it. Within the
family circle we have a miniature kingdom, a self-
contained community under an autocracy more or
less benevolent and a kind of communism in practice
though not in theory. While in many things, the
father is an autocrat and a pretty stern one at that,
and while, in domestic matters, the position of the
mother is also very autocratic, there is a certain
sense of mutual relationship and responsibility that
frequently surprises the outsider. The interests
of the family are one. If one member suffers, all
suffer with him, even in extreme cases sharing his
punishment when he comes under the law, and okzn
making good his defalcations when he has com-
mitted a crime. In the success of one member
all share, and what we would describe as wanton
nepotism, is, in China, a perfectly natural expres-
sion of the family spirit. Not to bring a share
of one’s prosperity to one’s near relations would be
the most unnatural kind of conduct. There are
many codes of family laws in China which date
back for thousands of years. They cover the widest

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 1^8

ranges of conduct. They are not stereotyped/ in
any final form, and different families have their own
unwritten rules which are binding upon all members.
Disputes between members of the family are almost
invariably settled within tBe family and disputes
between one family and another involve the whole
connection on either side. The ancient social system
which rested upon the grouping of a hundred families
with ore head man, and with a sense of mutual
responsibility throughout the group for any member,
may be taken as an illustration (ff the way in which
Chinese social organization is based on family
solidarity, with its ultimate sanction in the tim^-
honoured custom of ancestor- worship. As one
Chinese puts it : ‘‘ Although the lot of a Chinese,
whether a parent or a son, seems so surprisingly
hard, and the rising generation, imbued with the
so-called advanced ideas, resents the old idea of
supporting the whole family, it may be said that the
old system — that is, family socialism — ^is, on the
whole, socially desirable. Under such a system
the whole population may be equally poor, but they
are, I conceive it, better than the community in which
many are deprived even of bare subsistence, while
others enjoy a fortune of millions.*' *

In The Great Learning we have this statement of
the position of the family : “ The tranquillity and
happiness of the world depends on rightly governed
states. A rightly governed state necessitates well-
regulated families. A well-regulated family is made
possible only by the self-culture of the individuals
comprising it.” Thus we see that social theory in
China introduces the family between the State and
the individual. The question naturally arises in

' ThefChinese proverb says : “ Even a clever magistrate can
hardly arbitrate family matters.”

* L. K. Tao, in VUlage and Town Life in China*

IX* CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

ouAv minds as to whether manhood suffrage is China's
true method of democracy, and whether it may not
be possible to work out a political system resting
on the conception of family unity. The difficulty
is that modern industrial developments and Western
ideas of personal liberty are combining to cut out the
middle term as an effective force in the life of the
people. This is one of the most fundamental aspects
of the present situation in China. *■

Another ancient part of Chinese social life is the
system of guilds or cp-operative associations. The two
chief kinds of guild arc the provincial guild and the
t^ada guild. Both are primarily concerned with the
industrial organization of the country. In the absence
of any strong central government making laws for
trade, these guilds have come to take a most important
place in Chinese industrial life. The Hwei-kuan
(provincial guild) binds together merchants and others
who have come from any one province (or in some
cases from any one town), and who are residing in
another province (or town). These guilds are open
to all reputable men from the particular area and such
persons are expected to join them. They exist
to protect the interests of these foreigners,” and
in particular their trade interests. They give benefits
to members in special need, help new arrivals, defend
their members in law-suits (if they are thought to
have a good case) ; levy a tax upon the members
for such common j^urposes. Their organization is
essentially democratic,^ though the paid secretary
comes to have a very large influence in their affairs.
They are open both to rich merchants and to ordinary
working-men or clerks. These guilds have repeatedly
used their influence on behalf of their members to

^ For example, in many cases the governing body chosen by
vote changes its membership annually, so that all come in course
of time to serve on it.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 17fi

secure redress of grievances and generally to funther
their interests. The Government has to reckon
with them on occasion, and they often call on the help
of officials who come from the same place as the guild
members. They are another example of the great
influence of the clan-spirit in Chinese social life.

The trade guilds are much nearer in type to the
craft guilds in Europe in the Middle Ages. They are
self-governing democracies in which disputes between
the members are settled according to the guild’s
own rules, and where punishments range from small
fines to the last terrible weapon of the economic
boycott. So powerful are they that no merohant
carrying on a particular kind of busiiress can
possibly afford to stand outside his trade guild.
The guild does not pay much attention to the law of
the land, and in all trade matters it makes its own
rules, which are rigidly enforced. If a guild member
goes to law without first trying every possible resource
within his guild and without finally obtaining its
permission, he is liable to severe penalties. Trade
customs, prices, discount rates, setting up of new
business and many other similar matters are controlled
by the guild. Iqi fact, it may be said that, while
there are many differences between the various
guilds, all of them claim the absolute obedience of
their members, all regulate in great detail the
particular trade or craft, and all are democratic in
constitution. They have been for generations the
one effective check on dishonesty, unlimited competi-
tion and any practice that would bring discredit
on the trade, or suffering to those engaged in it.
They also control the rules for apprenticeship and so
are able to limit the number of persons learning any
craft and save the dangers of over-production. They
have in them immense possibilities both of good and
of ill. They may be the means of serving the

176 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

community and saving the people from exploitation,
or of enriching their own members at the expense
of the community.

Turning from these forms of social and industrial
organization, let us look for a moment at the industry
of China as carried on for thousands of years. Of
course the vast majority of the Chinese are in some
way connected with work on the land. The agriculture
of China is a high art, and intensive cultiva,tion has
been developed to such an extent that her huge
population, cultivating by no means all the land
(only about 15 per cent, of the area of China's twenty-
tworprovinces is now under cultivation), is practically
self-sustaining. The people are very largely peasant
proprietors, and an immense number of the holdings
are quite small ones. In 1917, a land survey showed
that of about fifty-eight million holdings over half
were of less than thirty mow (6J mow to the acre),
and less than three millions were over a hundred mow
in size. Taking China as a whole far more than half
the families living on the land own their own or part
of their own farms, although in some provinces, such
as Hupeh, the number who rent their farms is a very
considerable proportion of the whojie, say about one-
third. The patriarchal family system means that in
most cases the cultivation of any farm lands can
be undertaken by the members of the family, and there
is comparatively little hired labour. Very often ti^ere
will be some additional home industry, the keeping
of silk-worms, spinning and weaving, a salt-well on
the farm, embroidery, or what not. In the busy
seasons all hands can be turned to the harvesting
or other farm work. In the ojff-season the home
industry occupies the spare time. The family usually
does its own marketing, but there is co-operation in
special services such as watching the crops as they
ripen.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 177

In the smaller and also in the larger towns tjiere
are many small industries, frequently carried on in
the premises of which the front part is used as a shop
for the sale of the produce. The manufacture of toys,
leather goods, maccaroni, sweetmeats, paper money,
hats and innumerable other articles, embroidery,
spinning, mat-making, and indeed almost every form
of productive activity, save those processes which
need a^large plant and special conditions, may be
seen as one passes along almost any Chinese street.
Even if not immediately visible* they may be dis-
covered by peering behind a door or curtain. In these
small industries there may be a certain number of
hired persons, and apprentices are frequently taken
in and trained. The relations are often cordial and
the apprentices come to have a deep sense of loyalty
to their master, who in turn helps them when they
start on their own. The best of such industries are
like large families. The conditions are not what w^e
should call good ; often there is overcrowding and
the pay may be poor. But the work is done either
in fresh air, the whole side of the building being open
to street or court-yard, or at any rate in houses so
built that neither air nor rain are rigidly excluded ! In
many cases there is a system of profit-sharing which
may considerably augment the scanty pay. In one
case that I know of, the proceeds are divided at the
endjof three years so that the owner gets four-sixths,
the manager one-sixth and the employees one-sixth.

In addition to these small industries, employing
rarely as many as a hundred workers, there are a
few really big industrial undertakings in China where
large numbers of workers have been congregated
in a single centre for large-scale production. These
concerns are usually due to special circumstances,
as in the china factories at Ching-teh-chen,^ or thesalt-
^ Spelled on some maps King-teh-Chen or Chang -nan -chen.

12

178 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

wel^s at Tzi-Liu Chin, in Szechwan, where in each
case hundreds of thousands of Chinese are working in
one place because the materials are at hand. Such
industries have been quite the exception in China
until the last fifty years or so when the introduc-
tion of machinery from the West has caused the
aggregation of large numbers of workers in certain
centres, chiefly treaty ports.

Women and children share in the work both on
the fields and in the home industries or small house-
hold factories. Th§ir hours are frequently long, but,
when in the open air, this may not be incompatible
with healthy growth, as long as the kind of labour is
not arduous. The Chinese are a happy, contented
people on the whole, and one does not get the
impression of much revolt against the evils of this
industrial system. The community is fairly homo-
geneous, owing largely to the family system and the
relatively small number of wage-earners, and also,
in part, to the absence of any strong sense of social
caste. Of course there are good families in China
with wealth and education, and others that are poor,
illiterate and apparently without the finer traditions
and instincts. But the family system has served to
make possible the education of one or more members
from almost any family if a child showed promise,
and not a few of China’s great leaders have sprung
from the humblest homes. Culture is often present
in a high degree in homes where the living is of
the simplest and where there is no appearance of
wealth or even of comfort. It is this homogeneous
society with its close-knit family system, its trade
guilds, its home industries, its countless farmsteads,
with their small family holdings, which is to-day
threatened with disruption by the sudden avalanche
of Western industrialism.

It is perfectly clear that Western industrial methods

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 179

have come to China to stay. No one can put back the
hands of the clock and few would wish to do so.
There is no movement in China comparable to
Gandhi’s call away from the factory and back to
the hand-loom. Nor is it likely that any such call
will be made in China or would find, if made, any
considerable response, both because Chinese see the
very obvious material advantages of machinery and
because*, there is no added motive, as in India, of
shaking off a foreign yoke. The problem then is
rather one of directing this new* force in ways that
will bring the maximum of good with the minimum
of loss. With this thought in one’s mind we *may
review some aspects of the changes now taking
place.

The largest advance has perhaps been made in
improving the means of communication. All parts
of China are now connected by telegraph. The postal
system is peculiarly good except where, on occasion,
brigand bands raid the mails. The steamboat service
up the Yangtse (noAV extended through the gorges to
Chung King and above), and on other rivers, is
second to none in the world. Railway construction
has made very rapid strides, although recently held
back as a consequence of internal unrest and the
difficulty of raising capital during and since the
Great War. Beginning with the Woosung Railway
in 1£76, built by foreign capital, redeemed by China
and then torn up and sent as separate rails to Formosa,
the railways have multiplied in China to such an extent
that there are now some six thousand kilometres in
operation, carrying nearly thirty million persons a
year and over twenty million tons of merchandise.
This not only greatly facilitates commerce, but it is
one of the chief factors making for the change in
China’s social system, involving a much greater
facility of movement than formerly, a rapid spread of

180 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

new^deas and an inevitable tendency to weaken the
home ties. So far as their influence on creating a
capitalist class is concerned, the railways may not
prove to be a very important factor, although it
is true in some cases individual Chinese have very
large blocks of capital invested in certain railways.
The policy of the Government is being steadily
directed towards state ownership, and as the national
finances improve I expect this policy to be^ carried
through completely. Already over seventy thousand
persons are employed on the railways and in these
employees you have one of the large bodies of labourers
with common interests whose presence makes for a
class -conscious proletariat.

China’s mineral resources are being opened up far
more fully than ever before in her long history.
This is partly due to the break down of the super-
stition that mining beneath the earth’s surface would
in many cases bring ill-luck. But it is chiefly the
result of the introduction of better methods of
prospecting and mining, and to the increase in
transportation facilities. The effect of the last-named
point may be illustrated from an example in the
field of agriculture. In the Wei, Basin in Shensi,
wheat sells at one-third of the price in Hankow,
six hundred miles away, but it is so costly to bring
it 300 miles to the railway that even with this difference
it cannot be profitably brought to the Hafikow
market. Wheat can be brought to Hankow from
Seattle, nearly seven thousand miles, for half what
it costs to bring it six hundred miles from the Wei
Basin. This will make clear why mining operations,
until the introduction of modern transport facilities,
have been often unprofitable.

The resources of coal and iron in China have been
greatly exaggerated by some Western authorities.
Nevertheless they are very considerable and are in

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 181

excess of those known to exist in other lands bordering
on the Pacific, except America. The most reliable
estimate is that made by Mr. Ting, director of the
geological survey of China. Coal he puts at between
forty and fifty billion tons, about one -third of Britain’s
resources. Iron ore he puts at fully one thousand
million tons, or nearly as much as that of Britain
and one-fourth that of the United States. It is
perfectly clear that a country with such resources and
with other very valuable ores (China has, for example,
one half of the world’s known resources in antimony)
has a great industrial future. The mines of China
are being opened up as capitalist enterprises .on
similar lines to those in other countries, and it is
difficult to see how any other method of development
would have been possible or could even now be
pursued. Large amounts of capital had to be invested
in prospecting and in work which was for some time
unremunerative. Large risks had to be taken.
There was no organization, either of the workers or
in local or national government, able in the smallest
degree to carry out these operations. In a number
of cases foreign capital has been used involving various
degrees of foreign control and the use of the output
in foreign countries. This is particularly true of
the opening of mines under Japanese control during
the last fifteen years, particularly in Manchuria.
The information that I possess in regard to conditions
in the mining districts is not in most cases reassuring.
There is, however, one notable exception and it may
be well to quote this. It shows what is possible and
what may be done elsewhere, as Chinese and other
mine -owners awake to the dangers of following a
less enlightened policy, or to the advantages of a
similar one both to themselves and their employees
and to the social progress of China generally. The
example I refer to is in the area mined by the

182 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Hanyehping Company (who own the Hanyang
Ironworks). An eye-witness so described it in
June 1918:—

A township is being^' built which in every sense
of the word may be considered ‘ Model.* No
difficulty is too great, and no expense is being spared
to insure that the workpeople will be well housed
and cared for, both mentally and physically. . , .
The houses are built on modern European lilies with
plenty of room, light and fresh air . . . fitted with
electric light, for which tlie company intend making
a nominal charge. . . . The company have built,
equipped, and placed at the disposal of their employees
a magnificent club house, where there will be provided
all kinds of indoor and outdoor games and recreation ;
also a library, reading-room and accommodation for
residents.’* ^

Unfortunately I have no recent information about
this experiment, but I do know that a similar one,
the so-called Model City of Nan Tung Chow near
Shanghai, has been designed, built and maintained
by Chinese, and is a very fine example of what can be
done even in a country where standards of living are
admittedly very low and where there is much inertia
and prejudice to overcome. The hope of China’s
mining developments being carried through without
serious social upheavals seems to rest largely or„ the
far-sightedness and goodwill of the individuals and
companies, who have drawn together large numbers
of men to work for them in the mines. I see no
immediate prospect of the nationalization of mines
in China, and it is difficult to see how fresh mining
properties can be rapidly opened up without the
further use of foreign capital and direction, although,
if a slower pace were maintained, it might be possible
for Chinese to do this work themselves.

^ China Awahtned, p. 223.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 188

Turning to the related question of the building of
modern factories in China, we find that the proTblem
becomes even more acute. Scarcely anything
impressed me more after am absence of over ten years
from China than the phenomenal increase in the
number and size of modern factories. There is a
list of factories in China given in the China Year Book
which the publishers specially describe as incomplete.
It occupies some twenty-eight pages of that volume
with, say, forty or fifty factories on each page. The
goods manufactured include • albumen, cement,
chemicals, cotton, spirits, glass, leather goods, matches,
paper, rope, silk, soap, woollens and numbers of Other
articles of common use. Power plants, fldur mills,
saw-mills, oil mills, dockyards, iron works and other
types of industrial enterprise are included. These
factories are nearly all run on foreign or semi-foreign
lines, some under foreign and very many under
Cliinese management. In them, larger or smaller
numbers of men, women and children are brought
together as wage earners, mainly in the large towns.
In many cases there are prodigiously long hours,
the twelve-hour day being very usual and the fourteen-
hour day not unknown. The problem created is
one of the most thorny in the world to-day. There
are many local conditions which combine to make
it easy to exploit the labourer and difficult for those
who would do otherwise. Until lately there has been
very little general knowledge of what was happening.
Public opinion is difficult to rouse in China, and there
has been no education of the public conscience to
enable it to appreciate the nature of the evils and
risks. Labour has been very plentiful and very
cheap. The people have been accustomed to long
hours on their fields and do not realize that the same
hours in a factory are a very different proposition.
Until recently there has been no movement of

184 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

orgai^ized labour to draw attention to the evils and
to press for remedies. Even now such movements
as exist have little force and are not organized on a
national scale. There hi5.s been no strong central
government to watch developments, to make suit-
able factory laws or to see that they were observed.
If such laws were made in the foreign concessions
there was a belief that they would act unfavourably
towards factories established there as compared to
those outside, and so drive away trade, whereas if
similar laws were made by the Government of China
or by the local officials, foreign merchants would
have®little confidence (in the present state of things)
in their being enforced. I found a tendency among
Chinese employers to blame the foreigner who, they
said, cared less for the lives and the health of the
Chinese labourer than did their fellow-countrymen.
At the same time I am bound to say that I could
not detect any truths in this charge. Some of the
best factories are under foreign management and some
of the worst under Chinese. But the same statement
might also be made the other way round. The fact
is that there are some individuals, both Chinese and
foreign, deeply concerned at the trend of events ;
but these are the exception, and they find it intensely
hard to act alone in ways that they believe would
penalize them in the economic struggle. WJiere
experiments of a better type have been made, how-
ever, the result has not really been penalization.
There has been improvement of work, and better
relations between employer and employed have been
established. To illustrate the kind of conditions
that need remedy let me quote a single case taken
from a trade journal about a Shanghai mill.^

The profits of the . • . Cotton-spinning factory
again surpassed $1,000,000. To those who bestow
* Quoted in The Christian Revolution

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 185

thought on the progress of textile industries in China,
the following particulars regarding this concern
may be of interest. The company was started in
1904 with a paid-up capita} of $600,000 divided into
6,000 shares of $100 each. The capital was increased
to $900,000 in 1916. For the past two years it has
been running day and night with scarcely any inter-
mission. The number of hands employed is 2,500,
and the. folio wing is the wage table per day :

Minimum Maximum
Ceftta. (Mex.) Cents, (Mex.)

Skilled Laboub (e.g. Foremen) —

Men

. 35

60.

Women

. 30

, 60

Ordinary Labour —

Men .....

. 30

60

Women

. 20

30

Boys (aged about 15).

. 20

30

Girls (aged about 15)

. 10

20

Small boys (aged about 10)

. 10

20

Small girls (aged about 10)

7

10

The working hours are from 5.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.
and from 5.30 p.m. to 5.30 a.m., respectively. No
meals are supplied by the factory. Most of the cotton
used is produced locally, and the factory is able to
turn out about 7,000 piculs monthly of coarse yarn,
chiefly No. 10. It will be seen that the company is
in an exceptionally favourable position. With the
raw material at their doors, an abundant and absurdly
cheap labour supply to draw on, and no vexatious
factory laws to observe, it is not surprising that their
annual profits have exceeded their total capital on
at least three occasions.”

In this case it is easy to see that there is immense
room for improvement and a margin on which to
work without endangering reasonable profits. Unless
something is done by firms in such a position as this

186 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

one it seems certain that labour unrest will develop
very greatly. Speaking of child labour, Miss Agatha
Harrison, who is now studying the whole problem in
Shanghai, writes : — *

“ This is the most tragic and humiliating sight.
It is not easy to generalize on the age when children
begin work ; many of them are brought in as babies
by their mothers. In some of t'le factories visited
women were working with babies strapped their
backs (in one case a woman had her baby strapped
in front in order to fe^d it), and at the same time work
with both hands and a foot. Brought up in the
factory atmosphere, children learn to do odd jobs
at a very early age, and at the ages of six, seven and
eight years are to be seen on regular work.

“It is often argued that these little children do
not work, but are brought by their mothers who can-
not leave them at homo. To a certain extent this
is true, but the remark of an employer is a significant
answer : ‘ If we stop employing children our mills
would have to close down.’ Another has said :

‘ Children’s hands are peculiarly well-fitted for this
work.’ Twelve hours a day, and alternate weeks,
twelve hours a night, tell the life history of many
little people in China whose heritage the world over
is a few years at least of school and play.” ^

Much more could be said on this subject, f)ut
enough has been given to make clear the nature of
the problem we have to consider. We must now
turn from the bare facts of this vast industrial develop-
ment to consider its deeper significance and its larger
results.

The external effect upon the country life of China
is two-fold. In the first place there is the usual
tendency to draw people from the country to the
towns. While this is important, it is at present a
^ The Christian Ocoupation of China, p. 20.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 187

relatively small factor in the economic life the
country. The population is so vast and there are
so many parts of China which are somewhat over-
populated and from which there has been a more or
less steady stream of emigration, that so far there
has been no serious effect upon the agricultural
prosperity upon which China has always depended
for her economic stability. This result can hardly
fail to figure more largely in the future, and there is
likely to be a steady rise of food prices and some
shortage in staple products as a more or less recurring
symptom of industrial development. On the other
hand there is a steady demand for improvjsment of
agricultural produce due to the starting of modern
large-scale production and the competition with
foreign manufactures. This is seen in the setting
up of research stations and considerable efforts in
improving the strains of cotton, in weeding out the
diseased silk-worms and in attention to the breeding
of cattle. These are some of the questions already
receiving attention. Many others, such as the com-
bating of anthrax on the Manchurian and Mongolian
plains and the breeding of sheep whose wool has a
better staple, the improvement of many other crops,
re-afforestation and so forth, will receive increasing
attention as it becomes clear that the market demands
bet'fcer produce from the country. There is also much
room for advance in methods of assembling goods
for wholesale shipment, and other co-operative
measures.

Far more important, from our point of view,
is the inward change in the social structure that is
taking place slowly in many places, but rapidly in
others. ‘‘ Modern industry cuts the workers off
from their old life with its social ties, its economic
inter-relations, and its moral sanctions, and casts
them adrift on the currents of an uncharted and

188 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

trouljed sea. China has hitherto shown the most
remarkable social stability. Her family and clan
system, with the democratic village based upon it,
has persisted for four t'housand years, surviving
repeated foreign conquests of the country. And these
families have had an economic stability based on
their ownership of the land. What industry and
trade there has been, has organized itself in guilds.
But the large scale modern industry is growing up
entirely outside the guilds, and it is causing the
family system to erumble and destroying the almost
universal connection with the land — the break with
the past^is complete. The old supports have largely
gone ; the old loyalties by which they were upheld, the
precepts by which they were guided are disappearing
or losing their hold in changed conditions. How
are the illiterate, apathetic workers to build up a new
social heritage to replace the old ?

So writes Professor Taylor of Peking,^ and although
in one or two particulars I think this statement goes
a little far, if meant to apply to the whole of China,
it undoubtedly represents the very strong tendency
in many parts of the country and what has already
happened in some few places. New forms of organiza-
tion are being erected to take the place of the old,
and these forms tend to approximate to Western ideas
and thus to involve a break with China’s own p^ast,
a departure from her Tao, or inner nature. Chief
among these new forms are the labour organizations
springing up in all the industrial centres. These have
been strongest in the South and in Eastern Central
China as was only natural, both because of the
character and traditions of the people and because
these are the areas most deeply influenced by foreign
commercial enterprises. In Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s volume

* From an article quoted in The Christian OccupcMon of China,

p. 26 .

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 189

on the International Development of China, he pleads
fora development of China on socialist lines by foreign
capital, largely with the object of avoiding a class-
struggle. He sees, as all f^r-seeing men must, that,
unless something be done to prevent it, China is
very likely to become the cock-pit for a commercial
and a class struggle of extraordinary intensity and
bitterness. There are those who assume that the
Chinese "^jith their proverbial patience, adaptability
and peaceableness, can be exploited almost indefin-
itely, and that they will not turn against the ex-
ploiter. It may also be admitted that capitalists have
a tremendous advantage in China, coming with their
experience of the class-war and the power of Qfganize?d
labour in other lands to a people ignorant of these
things, and with no experience of the methods of
industrial development used elsewhere. These
considerations justify one in believing that the natural
reaction against the capitalist system in China might
be long delayed even if there should be much exploita-
tion of Chinese labourers. In the West the growth
of labour organizations has greatly checked such
exploitation ; and unscrupulous capitalists, often
banding themselves together for the purpose, have
exploited the consumer instead, for in many cases,
with the watering of capital and other methods,
such exploitation is necessary if even a small return
is to be made to the ordinary shareholder. In China
both kinds of exploitation can be carried on con-
currently, and hence the 100 per cent, profits in such
cases as that given a few pages back.

Such a state of things cannot continue. One’s
first thought as to the means of improving conditions
would naturally be to strengthen the labour organiza-
tions so that they may effectively operate towards
improved conditions of labour, and no doubt this
in itself is desirable from many points of view and

I9Q CHINA IN THE FA»fH.y OF NATIONS

should have a certain salutary influence. Already
a gopd many strikes have taken place in China and
in not a few cases very deplorable conditions have been
removed or improved. iThis method of continual
sub-acute warfare between employer and employed,
with occasional lapses into open battle, is not, how-
ever, a very satisfactory one for true and harmonious
progress anywhere, and it is clear to my mind that
it is not the method most suited to Chii]^, and is
really contrary to her national genius.

While Bolshevism has had a certain vogue among
Chinese social theorists and students, it seems clear
that the good sense of China is revolted by much
whic*h is^associated with that term. A recent Chinese
writer has thus analysed the situation : —

“ The idea of a Soviet Revolution in China will
quickly evaporate in the light of greater understanding
of socio-economic conditions in the Republic. To
begin with, the bulk of this nation, even under the
Manchus, was never so downtrodden as the Russians
under the Romanoffs or the French under the
Bourbons, and cut-throat animosity between different
classes in conspicuous by its absence. . . . Chinese
society is constructed on a horizontal foundation,
unlike the vertical stratification of India. . . .

‘ Down with the bourgeois,’ cried the insensate
destroyer, but there is no room in this land of
horizontal stratification for any vertical distinction
between [proletariat], bourgeoisie and aristocracy.”^
Admitting that “ anything may happen,” with the
growth of modern industry and with the entirely
new conditions so created, I should myself be much
surprised if any big, violent movement of social
revolution developed in China. Nevertheless, there
are many oJfr the elements that have contributed to
this end in other lands, and the changes which have
^ Mr. Tyau in Chinux Awakened^ pp. 235-6.

the INDUSTRlAI^tlOK 0 ;p^A ««

already taken place warn one againsti too confident
a forecasting of the future. This much is clear that
the situation is one which cannot be allowed to drift.

Dr. Sun, in the work already referred to, makes
the interesting suggestion that foreign capital should
be advanced in such a way as to build up a system of
State socialism. He points out that China's back-
w:ardness in industrial development is a blessing in
disguise (;i;^ot perhaps a very complete disguise either),
and that as a late comer into the field she may be
able to gain much from experience in other countries.
He says : — ‘‘ The goal of material civilization is not
private profit but public profit. And the shortest
route to it is not competition, but co-operation.
In my International Development Scheme, I propose
that the profits of this industrial development should
go first to pay the interest and principal of foreign
capital invested in it ; second to give high wages to
labour ; and third to improve or extend the machinery
of production. Besides these provisions the rest
of the profit should go to the public in the form of
reduced forces in all commodities and public services.
Thus all will enjoy in the same degree the fruits of
modern civilfiation. . . In a nutshell, it is my
idea to make capitalism create socialism in China,
so that these two economic forces of human evolution
will work side by side in future civilization.” ^

While we may think this dream rather too daring
it is at least significant as coming from one of the most
creative minds in China, and it is not without
significance that foreign capital, undejj. the plan of
the new International Consortium, is to be available
particularly for the development of national enter-
prises such as railways and canals, under Government
management. Is this a first step whereby capitalism
is being asked to create socialism ?

* Op. cit., pp. 164-5.

192 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

My own thinking in regard to the industrial develop-
ment of China has taken a somewhat different line.
I very much doubt whether a centralized scheme of
the kind proposed by Dr.^Sun is really true to China’s
own past, and suitable for more than a small part
of her industrial development. While I recognize
the grave difficulties in the way and while I am far
from sanguine as to the possibility in the near future
of directing the industrial development of J^hina into
any new direction, I believe that attention should
be earnestly directed to the problem of the adaptation
of China’s own industrial machinery to meet the
entirely new situation. At present the guild system
is breaking down, perhaps, in much the same way as
the guilds of the Middle Ages broke down in Europe.
The new conditions have come so suddenly as to
make adaptations almost impossible ; foreign influence
has not been helpful, and there is likely to 1^ a demand
for central legislation to take the place of the local
and specialized legislation of the trade guilds. In
some directions such central legislation will be good,
as for example, in securing minimum conditions on
such lines as the international standards. But
there is much to be said for leaving a large measure
of liberty to special trade guilds, especially if these
could be so developed as to include all who are engaged
in an industry, and so make for a form of industrial
democracy on a voluntary basis. With this suggestion
I would couple the idea that the system of profit-
sharing which obtains in a number of small factories
in China of the old type should be retained in some
form. The Chinese social system seems much more
suited to the development of comparatively small
factories where all who work together share a common
life and can cultivate the idea of common purpose,
than to the huge factories where thousands are
employed by a limited company which tends to

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA IM

become impersonal in its activities. Can the new
Chinese factories become, as it were, glorified families,
where something of the family spirit is carried over
into the larger community? Can China avoid that
type of impersonal relationship between employer
and employed which is one of the chief causes of the
class-war ? I believe there is such a possibility.
I have had the vision of China working out her own
plan of ’udustrial self-government, in which all
those engaged in any factory will be united in a
sort of family bond, where there ^will not be a large
body of absentee shareholders who make an unlimited
demand on the profits, however limited their liability
may be, and where such industrial communities
will be united in guilds, locally, provincially, and
nationally, making many of their own regulations
to secure a high grade of work, good conditions for
tihe workers, the high standard of rectitude for which
Chinese business is famous and therefore a first-class
service to the community. There is much in China’s
past to encourage the hope that such a development
would be a natural and therefore a stable one, not
liable to sudden disruption from internal causes.
The main obstacles are the pressure of foreign capital-
ists and traders, coupled with the urgent need for
capital in order to secure any industrial development,
with lack of leadership, imaginative and practical,
with time in which to work out experiments and
let a difficult transition be peacefully accomplished.
There is, I fear, also a lack of that degree of mutual
confidence which is a prime condition of success.

Some experiments are being made that at least
prepare the way for such a development. I found
a few co-operative enterprises being developed in
different centres. These are as yet small and little
known, but if they succeed they cannot fail to have
an effect out of proportion to their size. There are

13

194 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

the model villages and towns, to two of which I
referred, where education is being given to the workers
and a degree of mutual confidence is being created
which may make further developments possible.
In speaking to Chinese employers I found them ready
to listen to suggestions for improving conditions and
for educating their employees even though I said
quite plainly that such a policy would lead to a demand
for a share in control which could not ani ought not,
in my opinion, to be resisted. Chinese are quick
to see that a wide gulf between “ capital and
labour will not be in the interests of the country,
qnd there is in a number of employers a patriotic spirit
which Would prompt them to sacrifice some of their
own profits if they could thereby work for the solidarity
of the nation and a peaceful industrial development.

The Commercial Press in Shanghai is one of the
finest examples of enlightened and progressive
industrial enterprise under Chinese management.
It is a noteworthy fact that the leading spirits are
Christians and that the Press steadily refuses to
put out any literature of an unhealthy character.
The Press has a pay roll of over three thousand, the
wages being relatively high and augmented by a
bonus from time to time. Profit-sharing is practised,
and many of the workers are also shareholders in
the company. A pension system, savings bank,
evening school, Y.M.C.A., dispensary and hospital
are run by the firm. Mothers are given a month’s
leave of absence before and another month after
child birth and two special bonuses of $5 each in
connection with the event. In this business we have
an illustration of what can be done already even
under the present industrial system. Humane and
wise management of a factory must contribute
towards the right solution of this problem and the
temper in which it is to be sought.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CHINA 195

Japan’s industrial development has somewhat
alarmed the Chinese, not merely because of the effect
upon her policy in China 'and the Far East, but as
an example of the way in wMch the industrial system
may fasten on the body politic and even on the soul
of a people. During the year 1921 there were over
five hundred strikes in Japan. The great industrial
centres were full of unrest. I was told by the
leader of ^he Labour Movement that it was the
Christian idea of the value of personality, entirely
new, he said, to Japan, which^ was causing this
unrest. I found Japanese employers alarmed, and
eager in ‘not a few cases to do what they cjould
to improve conditions. The situation is tense aiid
difficult and the Government recognizes the big
problem of its increasing towns and industrial popula-
tion.

China is entering upon the same path. Will it
lead her into the same difficulties that Japan is
facing and so strengthen the tendency towards the
twin evils of materialism and militarism ? Will
it lead her along what the economic determinist would
regard as the only road to emancipation — class-
consciousness and class-war ? Or is it possible that
Chinese good sense, adaptability, patience, and peace-
ableness will enable this great nation to strike out
a new line, to reach a basis for development that
shall escape the most serious evils of modern
industrialism ? The answer to this question hangs
in the balance. Its issue will be of immense
significance, not for China alone, but for all the
members in the family of nations. We Western
peoples who have forced on her these perplexing
problems owe to her what service we can render in
helping her to solve them. Here is a missionary task
of the first magnitude to be shared in by any who
have the knowledge, sympathy and tact required, and

196 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

who win be content to serve where they are asked, and
wiU not seek to impose their views upon those they
want to help. We owe it to China to give our best
thought and some of ourf best people to her to help
in the solution of a problem we have done so much to
create.

CHAPTER X

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT.

In these pages we have necessarily concerned our-
selves mainly with external movements. We now
come back to a consideration t)f the problem of
the inner life of thought and spirit. At the outset
we glanced at the picture of ancient China, with her
art, her literature, her philosophy, and her •religious
aspirations. We have seen something of the many
influences, religious, commercial, political, that have
had a share in making out of that ancient nation
the China of to-day. Before we speculate about the
China of to-morrow we shall try to understand
how the thought life of China is responding to these
external influences. Far more important and signifi-
cant than the industrial and political changes in
China is the change in her mental and spiritual life,
This is much more difficult to study and estimate.
Yet we cannot shirk the task. The whole object
of this volume will be missed unless we can gain
some true idea of what is happening in this sphere.

The changes in thought are both the result and
the cause of many of the things we have already
discussed. The impact of the West has quickened
new thought, and new thought has led to re-adjust-
ment in social and political life. It is therefore
difficult to know just where to begin.

Perhaps it will be best first to deal with a movement
which had no connection with European or American
influence : I refer to the literary revival of the

Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty. During this period there

ivi

198 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

were many scholars who, under a Chinese ruler,
would, in all probability, have been engaged in
government service, bu|} who devoted themselves
instead to a re-examination of the classical writings.
They were not concerned with original philosophy,
but they formed a school of patient textual critics,
and they challenged the work of the commentators
of the Sung and Ming dynasties. Around the writings
of the sages a vast mass of commentary and inter-
pretation has grown up in the course of the centuries,
and this has created an orthodoxy which has
amounted to an enslavement of thought. This
tendency came to a head during the Sung dynasty,
when ah edition of the classics was published by
imperial authority about the beginning of the eleventh
century, with the title The Correct Meaning^ and
still more in the writings of Chu Hsi, who (about
a hundred years later) composed in beautiful style
those famous commentaries, whose influence on the
literature of China “has been almost despotic.’’^
Not until the Ch’ing d 3 nasty did any school arise
which seriously challenged these “ correct meanings.”
The patient work of Maon Se-ho (who published
over 300 books on the classics) and other scholars
did much to break the intellectual fetters with which
Chinese students had been bound ; and in many
respects they may be compared to our own textual
critics, preparing the way^ for the later work of
higher criticism. They reconstructed the texts of
lost authors and delved into the rich mines of
classical literature which awaited patient scholarly
investigation. Although their work was little known
there can be no doubt that it has been one of the
chief preparations for the New Thought Movement.
It is very important to recognize that we have here
a purely indigenous effort of a very high order inspired
^ Legge, Confucian AmleetSf p. 20.

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT IM

by a desire for truth and a scientific earnestness
not less than that which has marked the advance
of the West in invention and investigation of nature.
It was essentially a revolt against mere tradition,
in the conviction that truth must be faced whatever
the consequences.

The second cause, without which this first move-
ment could scarcely have led to any revolutionary
changes, was the impact of Western thought. This
came, in the first place, very largely through missionary
schools and colleges and through the books written
and translated by missionaries. ' For many years
education along Western lines was resisted by China
as a whole. To the Christian missionaries^ belongs
the honour of persisting in the work of enlighten-
ment against great opposition and misrepresentation.
Now that Young China is turning eagerly to the
West and is inclined to make light of this contribu-
tion and of the actual educational work of missions,
it is not unfitting to stress this point. A leading
non-Christian Chinese, on being asked when the revolu-
tion in China began, replied, ‘‘ When Robert
Morrison entered China,’’ thus indicating his sense
of the acknowledgment due to the foreign missionary
as the initiator of progressive movements. This
widespread work has not been confined to the
comparatively small number who could enter the
missionary schools and colleges. Through personal
contacts, through magazines and, in particular, through
certain books which had an immense circulation
during the latter half of last century, the ideas
behind Western civilization have been spread broad-
cast. Probably no book on Western life was at one
time more widely read in China than Dr. Timothy
Richard’s adaptation of Mackenzie’s Wonderful
Century. It gave a graphic picture of what modern
science had done for the West. Dr. Richard’s name

200 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

became a household word in every part of the Empire,
and is to-day a name to conjure with, largely because
in this book and other ways he sought to give China
the very best and the Wery latest, in order that
she might use these gifts for her own good.

Another avenue through which Western ideas
came flooding into China was the influence of Chinese
educated abroad. Beginning with the group of
students sent to America in the early seventies of
last century (of whom Tang Shao Yi is probably the
best known) there has been a constant and generally
growing stream sent both by the Government and
the missions, and now increasingly going at their
own*^ charges. At the present moment it is largely
these men and women who are leading the thought
of China. Many are brilliant and well informed,
and they are not simply imitators of the West.
The real significance of the present position is that
there is a considerable body of such Chinese who
are keenly alive to Western ideas, ready to recognize
how much China has to learn, but fully determined
to save China from becoming a mere copyist. They
are, in many cases, living in Chinese homes, much
as their ancestors did, wearing Chinese dress and
observing Chinese social customs, even though they
have spent years living in Western style and dressed
in American or British broadcloth. They have sat
in classes with Western students and have shown
their mettle time and again as able to hold their
own in classes conducted in a foreign tongue and along
unfamiliar lines. There are men among them who,
even with these handicaps, have come out first in
their classes. I wonder where an English young man
of twenty would stand if he had to compete in a
university class in a tongue other than his own with
Chinese students, even if he had had several years
in which to learn it before entering 1

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 201

There is no need to recapitulate the various external .
reactions due to the meeting of Western ideas and/
Eastern prejudices and principles as seen in the(
reforms of the young Emperor, the Boxer uprising,
the later edicts of the Empress -Dowager, the birth
of the Republic, and so forth. What we want to do
is to see what methods and ideas characterize the
so-called New Thought Movement and what is its
deeper significance. The persistent aggression of#
Western nations, and the subtle infiltration of new?
ideas have combined to break, up the rock whichf
to Francis Xavier seemed as if it never would open,^
The pride of ancient China has given place to a new
humility. The obstructiveness of the old scholar
is replaced by the receptiveness of the new. The
China into which new ideas were being pumped,
as it were, against her will, is giving place to the
China which is actively assimilating food ; and the
difference suggested by the two similes is a real one ;
the new China is discriminating, she is an active
partner in the process, which is a life-process and not
a mechanical one.

The New Thought Movement is only the latest
manifestation of the way in which the life of China
is shaped by her scholars. No student of China
can be blind to the great influence exerted by the
scholars upon her social and political development.
We have already looked at some of the occasions
when political events could only be explained in
the light of the prevailing philosophy. The makers
of Chinese history have been her thinkers far more
than her generals. The sources of their power seem
to me to have been two-fold. In the first place Chinese
have an immense, perhaps even an exaggerated,
respect for learning. Philosophy in China has been
a practical thing. The maxims of the sages largely

202 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

concern the ever-present problem of how men may
live together in concord. That is to say, the classica
are largely concerned with political philosophy,
although, of course, abstract discussions had an
interest for some of the great teachers. Thus the
respect for learning is in part a conviction that
learning is relevant to politics ; the wise man is the
man with statesmanship, foresight, understanding
of how men ought to act and of how they will act
in association with one another. In the West the
idea of learning has^ been at times largely divorced
from that of practical statesmanship. The typical
scholar is one who is withdrawn from life and in
his'own little world makes his contribution to abstract
thought or to scientific theory. There is often an
antithesis between the professor and the man of
affairs. Broadly speaking, one may say that this
antithesis is quite foreign to the thought of China.
What is learning for if not to help men to live together
peaceably ? In Confucius you have the combination
of the sage and the statesman. He would not be
reverenced in the one capacity had he not sought
to apply his wisdom in the other. This conviction
has expressed itself in the civil service examinations
whereby the door to public service was opened
only to the man of learning who had sat at the feet
of the sages. Hence, when the scholars speak, the
average Chinese believes that he is listening to words
of exceptional political wisdom. I am not discussing
the problem as to whether this is a good thing or
a bad one and how far Chinese history shows the
wisdom of entrusting political affairs to men of
academic distinction. I simply state the fact as
one of the reasons why the scholars of China have
exercised, and are to-day exercising, so large an
influence on her politics.

The second reason is, I believe, that through

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 208

her students China has for many centuries been
much more of a democracy than appears on the
surface. Every family in the Empire might have
a member in the student body. The great ambition
of the family would centre in the brilliant son who
might, in course of time, through many painful
experiences in the great examination halls, become
one of China’s “ governing class.” The very use of
that phrasb is an anomaly which illustrates the point.
There has not been, in our sense, an upper or a
middle class who have monopoli:^ed to a large extent
the government offices. In the sense that the rulers
of China might be drawn from any family, one may
say that the local, and even the central government,
has been democratic, a government by the people.
The son who succeeded represented his family
interests ; he came out of a community where he
was fcnown and whose life he knew ; his brother
would be following the plough or sitting at the
loom. Thus the official is in some degree in touch
with the common life of the people, and the large
student body from whom the officials were selected
were a sort of informal democracy watching the
government on the one hand and ever hoping to be
able to play their part in it, yet on the other hand
in touch with the life of the masses. Many would
come from country districts even though their life
was lived in the town, and in their correspondence
with the home folks would give not only news from
the city, but the latest ideas of the student
body.

These considerations may help us to appreciate
why it is that the student body has had, and still
has, so much larger an influence in the development of
the country than is, I suppose, t he case in any other
land. There is still little real democracy in China.
The mass of the people are not educated enough to

204 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OP NATIONS

take an intelligent part in public affairs. Movements
of reform have been limited to a small minority.
But that minority is in a very strong position relative
to the rest of the population. The most effective
organ of democratic expression is the student body
in association with the educational associations
throughout China. It is this body which is the trustee
of the past and the interpreter of the new thought
which is seething in China to-day. It is ‘this body,
more than the military chieftains, with whom the
future really lies. ‘

The methods used by the leaders of the movement
are of special interest. The printing press has, of
course, been known in China for many centuries,
and the traditional respect of Chinese for the written
word gives great advantage to this means for propa-
gating ideas. Young China has used the Press, with
the modern improvements and the advantages which
come from a first-class postal system, to an extent
never before dreamed of in the country. It is no
exaggeration to say that China has been flooded
with magazines and papers during the last few
years. At one time there were not less than four
hundred magazines being published in the interests
of the movement. They dealt largely with fundamental
principles and with their application to every depart-
ment of life. Books have usually been published
in series, each part being of the nature of a magazine
or pamphlet. Very many of these have been transla-
tions of foreign works. It is true that the number
of magazines is now greatly reduced, but there are
still about one hundred being published, which
shows a large amount of literary activity among
the students. In not a few cases students have
themselves hawked the volumes or set up book
stores where they could be obtained. In fact, we
may say there has been a national tractariain^ move-

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 205

ment not in the interests of authority, but in the cause
of freedom.

Another interesting method has been the public
lecture. Here again the movement uses and improves
on an old Chinese custom. The scholar or story-
teller may be found with his little group of listeners
at many a tea-house and street-corner in every
part of China. The modern lecturer may not so
often go out into the open, although that is done,
and I myself took part in an open-air meeting in
Chengtu planned by the eduoational association
in one of the large parks. Foreigners have been
brought over to China in order to give Chjjiese
students first-hand acquaintance with leaders of
progressive thought in other countries, and the lectures
given in various centres have been published far
and wide. This method may only emphasize one
aspect of the movement, but it is an important
means of breaking down prejudice, as the foreigner
comes, not on his own initiative, but as the guest
of the Chinese themselves.

Another important method is the group discussion
carried on in numbers of small societies all over the
country. I came into touch with some of these
and found that they were not only discussing problems
in an abstract way, but also making social and
educational experiments in order to express them-
selves and to try out their ideas. The sense of dis-
satisfaction with the present order is brought to
a head in such groups, and at the same time there
is, in some cases certainly, a serious purpose to
study the best available literature, whether it be
on a social, a scientific, an economic or a religious
problem.

Far and away the most significant thing in the
realm of method is the change which has been made
in the written language. Here the reformers were

206 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

dealing with one of the most deeply rooted traditions
in China. The language of scholarship for all recorded
history has been the Wenli, or classical language.
This is a method of writing which depends for its
effectiveness upon great condensation and upon
a wealth of literary allusion which is utterly beyond
the uninitiated. It has been the treasure of the
61ite only to be won after years of painful study,
an insurance against saperficial learning E^fid a means
of preserving continuity with the distant past.
Greneration after generation have laboriously acquired
a language which probably never was a spoken
one„ and as each generation of scholars acquired
it*, they*- became the guardians of the heritage for
their favoured successors. The examination system
depended entirely on accurate scholarship of this
type, and an essay written in the speech of the
people would no more be looked at than an English
composition would bo considered in a Greek prose
test.

Against this time-honoured language the leaders
of the New Thought have tilted with all the enthusiasm
of revolutionaries. The motive has not been destruc-
tion of the ancient classics, but rather the determina-
tion to open the storehouse to the general public.
It has also been necessary to fashion a mobile language
which could be readily adapted to express new ideas
and to take in new phrases. The missionaries should
have the credit of being the pioneers in this reform
because they saw that the Bible of the people must
be put into the language of the people. In spite of
the fact that only light literature such as fiction
was ever published in the ordinary vernacular, the
Bible was so translated. The missionaries did for
Chinese what Wycliffe did for English ; they made
the spoken language a fit vehicle for expressing the
deepest truth. On this foundation the modern

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 207

scholars have built as the Elizabethan writers followed
Wycliffe. They have greatly enriched the language
with new terminology ; ithey have written their
most scholarly works in the limpid, easy phrases
of a living language instead of trying to crush these
new thoughts into a dead one. The result is that
they have opened to the common people the old
learning and the new ; they are well on the way
to creating a reading China, in place of a little
aristocracy of learning.

The Bei Hwa, or plain language, has won the day.
The opposition was at first very bitter, as was only
natural when a privileged class was threatened* with
the loss of its special privileges acquired* through
much painful effort. But the Government has now
so far recognized the triumph of the new speech
as to order the use of it for the text-books in all
primary schools. It is an interesting fact that the
final triumph in this sharp conflict came in connection
with the decision of the Versailles Conference in
the Shantung issue. The country was swept with a
wave of popular feeling which demanded expression.
The Bei Hwa was the weapon forged for just such
an emergency. At once pamphlets and articles
appeared all over China demanding a change in the
Government and explaining the political situation.
The new language was the only way of reaching
the masses. The opposition was simply snowed
under in the popular enthusiasm. What had been
the hobby of the few became accepted as the national
language or Kuo Yu, The pathway to knowledge
had been blazed, so that the wayfaring man,
though a fool, should not err therein.

This reform has not only made the treasures of
learning available for the less educated Chinese; it
has also made intercourse with foreigners much
simpler. Very few who had not learned from child-

208 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

hood could hope to acquire a sufficient knowledge
of the classics to appreciate all the allusions and to
get the full flavour and meaning of what was written
in WenJi. Modern Chinese thought, including the
re-emphasis upon many aspects of the ancient
philosophy, is now easily accessible to the foreigner
who possesses an average knowledge of the language.
The movement towards the unification of the spoken
language has also received a great impetuc, and even
in places where a local dialect has been the only
means of intercourse in the past many now learn
to speak Mandarin. This is greatly facilitated by
the phonetic script which is used to give the right
pronunciation of new words for school children,
and which, by its use for illiterates, is also tending
to unify the spoken language. It will probably be
many generations before the local dialects disappear
or become so much modified as to differ, say, only
as Yorkshire and Somersetshire dialects differ from
one another. But we shall surely in time see the
disappearance of the anomaly of a people with
the same written language and with many quite
different vernaculars. Whether the phonetic script
will even take the place of the Chinese ideographs
is a subject on which I do not venture to prophesy.
On the one hand, there is sure to be a tendency in
that direction in the interests of commercial efficiency,
a more rapid education and better means of communi-
cation with foreigners. The learning of the ideo-
graphs takes an altogether disproportionate amount
of the student's time, whether he be a Chinese child
or a foreign adult. On the other hand, the character
is so bound up with the history and inner nature
of the people, is so rich a storehouse of thought
and experience, and has such a strong hold on the
affectionate regard of the nation that I do not look
forward to its early disuse, nor could I do so with

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 209

anything but deep regret. In these years of transition
in particular I feel that China must hold to her own
script. If it were given up, I fear it would be the
first step towards the complete Westernization of
China, a disaster of the first magnitude both for
China and for the world. Happily there is no im-
mediate prospect of anything like this taking place,
but one cannot fail to see that there are strong reasons
which might, under certain circumstances, bring
such a movement into being. Perhaps the chief
safeguard is the nature of the* spoken language,
which, being entirely monosyllabic, has very few
distinct word-sounds. Where one sound has to do
duty for many different meanings a phonetic script
is liable to give the wrong meaning, a matter easily
corrected in conversation, but of greater difficulty
in communication by writing.

Enough has been said in regard to this revolution
in language to show the driving power of the student
movement. A literary tradition, thousands of years
old, in a country proverbially conservative, has
been overthrown in about five years. The credit
belongs largely to the leaders in the National
University, and in particular to Dr. Hu Shih (Suh Hu),
a graduate of Cornell and Columbia, and a man
of peculiar charm and personal force. His influence
has spread throughout the country and he is far
more the leader of China to-day than any general
or politician. He and his friends are opening the
treasure-house of ancient and modern learning to
the man in the street, and are attempting to bring
about that synthesis on the nature of which the
future of China so largely depends. The struggle
for the Bei Hwa has really been a struggle for the
ideals of the New Thought Movement, and to these
we must now give some attention.

To understand the New Thought Movement one

14

210 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

must contrast it with what was happening in China
ten or fifteen years ago. At that time China was
anxiously looking to the West in the belief that
she needed Western ideas and inventions and methods
in order to develop her resources, raise the standard
of living and assume her place among the great
Powers as Japan had done. Not least did she feel
the need of an army and navy that would command
respect and so enable her to resist foreign aggression.
Self-interest and self-protection plainly indicated
the need of going «to school with the West. There
was a determination to gain what she could of Western
civilization mainly on its material side, and obviously
to do this one must study in Western ways and, if
possible, in Western schools.

Since then several things have happened. The
Great War has given a shock to China and caused
her thoughtful people gravely to question the value
of Western civilization in certain of its outstanding
results. A closer knowledge of Western lands by
students and by coolies working in France, and
through literature, has made many Chinese sceptical
as to the advantages of our boasted civilization.
To this must be added the moral revulsion caused
by Japanese methods, in which China sees a too
apt copying of European models. The failure of
Versailles to remedy China’s wrongs is another
important factor in the growth of a new spirit.

While these influences have been causing many
Chinese to question Western superiority, there has
also been a deep conviction that all is not well with
China herself. Her internal discords and weakness
are patent to all. The much-vaunted democratic move-
ment has not achieved inward peace and stability,
and China’s new rulers under the Republic have
not, as a whole, shown any greater self-restraint
in regard to peculation than did the old. In fact,

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 211

many Chinese will tell you that the country as a
whole has suffered rather than gained by the over-
throw of the Manchu regime, bad as that had become.
Those who are thinking about China’s own condition
and her place in the world are in a dilemma. To
copy the West may mean a second Japan, only
more so ; to refuse to do so may mean weakness,
decay and dissolution.

The group of young men who are guiding Chinese
thought to-day are facing this dilemma by an effort
on the one hand to discover tl^ inner secrets of
Western strength, and, on the other, to bring out
the deepest meaning in their own philosophy, and
so to effect a new synthesis on the intellecimal and
spiritual plane. They have set themselves the task
not of copying the West here and the East there,
but rather of creating a new thing through a deeper
appreciation of all that is best in both. The task
is supremely difficult, and for that reason it cannot
be supposed that anything like complete success
has yet been attained. Some will challenge this
interpretation, because what they have chiefly seen
in the movement seems to be wild excess and over-
statement in one direction or another. They see
manifestations which may be labelled as Bolshevism,
free-love, atheism, ultra-nationalism, license and
so forth. Such manifestations are inevitable in a
time of intense mental and spiritual ferment. But
they are not the most significant thing, and by a
concentration on them one may miss the real signifi-
cance of what is happening. No one can say whether
the truer ideals of the movement will prevail or
whether they will be lost in a welter of excess. But
to assume the latter is to make that eventuality
more probable, while to study and sympathize with
what is best in the movement is at least to give this
a chance of prevailing over the many dangers by

212 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

which it is surrounded. Most of what I say is there-
fore a frank appreciation of the movement rather
than an attempt to criticise it.

The leading ideas which are emphasized in the
literature of the movement and by its leaders are
not unlike those which characterize the movements
of youth in other countries. Coming from Europe,
where I had been able to make some study of the
German Youth Movement and other similej^r manifesta-
tions, I was greatly struck by this similarity. This
in itself is a symptom of the new age in which the
progressive forward-looking thought of all nations
tenths to approximate. Is not this one of the most
hbpeful ifacts in a world where there is still so much
discord and distrust ? Like the Youth Movement in
Germany there is no central organization to whom
one can appeal for an authoritative statement of
what the movement stands for. Perhaps the chief
uniting force is in the magazine known as La J eunesse
(Shing Tsin Nien), which was started in 1915 and
has come to be recognized as giving expression to
the aspirations and principles that are guiding
Young China. But even this magazine has no
authority beyond what it can gain by the intrinsic
worth and acceptability of the ideas it publishes,
and no doubt one of the chief reasons of its influence
is just the fact that it does not assume to be an
authority. It is characteristic of the movement
to challenge all authority, to oppose organization
as such, and to criticize strongly any attempt to
impose ideas or fashions upon others. It represents
a reaction against despotic government on the one
hand and a rigid literary tradition on the other

This reaction seems to me to spring from a new
view of the value of the individual and his rights
in society. In the old patriarchal family the individual
never had a chance of adequately expressing himself

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 218

until he reached the position of pater familias, and
when he got there his mind was already set and he
tended to dominate all other members of the house-
hold. A man’s life was ordered for him by rigid
social requirements ; marriage was arranged by the
families often quite independently of the wishes of
the parties most concerned and sometimes more in
the interests of the family as a whole than in those of
the bride and bridegroom ; choice of occupation
was very limited, choice of residence very rare.
This system, with all its advant«.ges for social co-
herence, tended to create the rebel type — and now
that social ties are being weakened, the rebel is
getting his chance. The New Thought Movement
is psychologically in part a rebel movement. But
it is more than this, and unless it be more than this
it cannot be of the greatest lasting value. There is a
new discovery of the meaning and possibility of
human life, and this, I think, has mainly come
through Christian channels, though not always so
recognized. I used to wonder whether missionary
education in China was not going too far in its
emphasis on this truth or, at any rate, failing to
emphasize the other aspect of life, that of social
solidarity. There may have been some failure here,
but the results show how ready China was to discover
the meaning of personality, than which scarcely
any greater gift could be given her from the West ;
for the worth of the person is in reality an assertion
of the divine purpose and the possibilities of human
life. The emphasis on personal worth is* not perma-
nently possible apart from belief in a personal God,
and it is here that Chinese thought has, in my view,
been most deficient.

How can this new wine be poured into the old
bottles of Chinese social life without disastrous
results ? This is the great problem which I see,

214 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

and it is here that the New Thought Movement
should greatly help. In probing into the deeper
meaning of Chinese philosophy it becomes apparent
that the ruling ideas are related to the ever-present
problem of social adjustment. It is true that the
Confucian classics have much to say about the
Chiiin Tsi or Princely Man. His character and habits
of mind are dwelt upon, and we are told that he
must have sincerity, patience, earnestness, and
so forth. But these qualities are needed in order
that he may serve the community. His character
is judged by social standards.

‘SThe officer/’ we are told, “having discharged
all his duties, should devote his leisure to learning.
The student, having completed his learning, should
apply himself to be an officer ” (Analects Bk. XIX,
Ch. XIII). And, again, “ The scholar, trained for
public duty, seeing threatening danger, is prepared
to sacrifice his life. When the opportunity of gain is
presented to him, he thinks of righteousness
(Ibid., Bk. XIX, Ch. I),

If the Western emphasis on personality is not
to act as a solvent on much that is admirable in
Chinese life, it will be necessary to preserve a very
strong sense of social duty. Whatever we may have
to say about official corruption in China, and un-
fortunately there is much to be said about it, the
highest thought of China has clearly seen that no
community could persist without the belief in our
all being members one of another. It is not by military
prowess and individual self-assertion that the sages
believed in creating harmony and good government.
When Mencius was asked, “ How can the kingdom
he settled ? ” he replied, “ It will be settled by
being united under one.” “ Who can so unite it ? ”
said the king. “ He who has no pleasure in killing
men can so unite it.” “ Who can give it him ? ”

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 215

he was asked. ‘^All under heaven will give it him/^
was the reply (Mencius, Bk. I, Ch. VI).

Young China to-day, in ^turning back to her sages,
is following the path of wisdom. We in the West
are beginning to see that pure individualism, the
policy of laissez faire and unchecked individual
enterprise, is disastrous. Can China avoid passing
through such a phase ? There are many signs that
the rebel spirit is intolerant of any form of constraint
whether by government or social custom. Everything
depends on whether Young China, bursting the bonds
of outward restraint, is going to show a self-restraint,
a poise, an inward discipline similar to that of her
greatest leaders in the past.

Coupled, then, with the new emphasis on personality
expressing itself in democratic movements, in freedom
from social tyrannies, in aesthetic self-expression,
and so forth, we find an emphasis on social service
and a belief in peace and goodwill as the gifts which
China should be bringing to the world. New ideas
are tested not by their relation to the past ; are
they orthodox or not ? They are tested rather by
their reasonableness and scientific accuracy on the
one hand ; will they fit the facts ? and by their
social utility and practicability on the other hand ;
will they work ? This is the temper in which
Young China is setting forth upon her new' crusade.
Old and new alike are submitted to these tests.
Chinese customs and Western innovations alike
come under review. Young China believes that
with this touchstone she will be able to create out
of the blending of new and old the civilization which
expresses her inner nature and is adapted to carry
her forward in the general stream of human progress.

The movement may also be considered as an effort
to achieve the threefold aim of human endeavour,
truth, goodness and beauty. In the search for truth

216 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Young China applies the methods of the West as used
in scientific and historical research. Superstition
of every form is challenged. There is a certain
ruthlessness in the youth of China, as in other lands,
a fearlessness of consequences which is willing to
see anything go in the interests of ti;uth. The great
danger in such a spirit is that things of value may
be sacrificed in the interests not of truth itself, but
of an imperfect conception of truth. cannot be
said that the New Thought Movement has wholly
escaped this danger, but when one considers the
terrific obstacles that have had to be overcome, it
need cause no surprise that there have been some
mistakes-

In the quest for goodness the emphasis has certainly
been laid upon a social rather than upon a personal
good. The movement is intensely patriotic, yet
at the same time it looks upon the task of China
as not simply self-assertion, but rather as self-*
development for the good of the whole human family.
The ideals are international in a general sense, though
as regards the aggression of Japan or other foreign
Powers, there is very deep resentment. The concern
of the leaders is not mainly, however, to effect political
changes, but rather to educate the people, to improve
social conditions, to tackle the problems raised
by the industrialization of China, and so forth.
The social conscience is being quickened and efforts
have been made for depressed classes, rickshaw men,
children in factories, and so forth. It cannot be said
that any large results have yet been achieved, but
even the fact that attention is being directed to
such objects is a hopeful feature in the situation.

In the third place the movement emphasizes the
need for a truer appreciation of art and literature.
It is even showing a tendency to substitute aesthetics
for religion and to assume that man’s instincts of

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 217

reverence and his spiritual longings can be satisfied
in this realm. One of the writers in the movement
has expressed the point in these words : “ We realize
that true religion and literature embrace the same
spirit. Consequently, however attacked by science
religion may be, it still occupies a firm and proper
place in literature. This is not to praise religion
or to offer any apologies for religions, because they
are really one in their fundamental spirit. Even
though all the churches were overthrown, there
would still exist in literature the essence and feeling
of religion,” This impersonal idea of religion seems
to me inadequate as a dynamic to enable Chinese
students to realize their high aims. But it^ may be
that some of the religious teachers from the West
have failed to appreciate the need for artistic expres-
sion of ‘our deepest aspirations and ideals, and that
the emphasis of the movement on this aspect of
life is needed more than some Westerners think.
Doubtless a place must be found in the higher life
of China for the expression of that passion for beauty
and those exalted ideas of art to which reference
was made in the second chapter.

While the movement is not primarily political,
it will have been clear that it is intimately bound
up with the political development of China. Freedom
in the realm of thought must express itself in free
democratic institutions. There is almost an obsession
on this point among the students. News has just
reached me of a big inland city where three of the
chief Government colleges are at a standstill because
the students would not accept the principal appointed
by the authorities and have elected their own. When
I was in Peking, I had the unique experience of
giving a sample lecture to the Government Higher
Normal College, after which the students voted
by show of hands in my presence on the question

2l8 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

as to whether they would have the rest of the course.
These are but trivial illustrations of a very urgent
demand on the part of Young China to be mistress
in her own house. One might say they are the effect
upon the students of the sense that China is a mere
plaything of the great Powers, the commercial
magnates and her own military chiefs. They are
saying in the only department of action open to them,
“ We will not have these men to reign over us.”

The effect upon the women of China' is perhaps
even greater than that upon the men. There we
have a problem of 'the first magnitude. Every pro-
gressive person must desire the emancipation of
China’s womanhood from the bondage of the past.
But how can this be accomplished without loss too
terrible to contemplate ? The most remarkable
change in China during the last ten or twelve years
is the change in the status of womanhood. Women
are going about freely ; many are receiving a good-
education ; they are demanding freedom from home
restraints, a voice in the all important matter of
marriage, and so forth. At a recent women’s student
conference my wife was to lead one of half a dozen
sectional gatherings, her subject being ‘‘ Freedom in
the Home.” All the other sections were depleted,
and the whole conference gathered to hear her and
discuss this burning topic. The New Thought Move-
ment recognizes the equality of the sexes. It has
not yet worked out its principles on this question,
but it is standing for the Western idea of the home
in which the newly-married couple shall be free to
live their own life. Thus is challenged the very
foundation of the ancient social structure of China.

Every student of contemporary history will realize
the family likeness between this New Thought Move-
ment in China and similar movements in other
countries. That which gives the individual character

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 219

to this movement is its relation to China’s philo-
sophical background on the one hand, and the sudden-
ness with which she has Been plunged into this new
world of thought on the other hand. It is early to
judge of the movement, and one has no right to
assume that its present characteristics will be main-
tained. But I do not think it is altogether fantastic
to compare it to the Renaissance in Europe. My
friend Dr. Phillippe de Vargas, of Peking, has worked
out this comparison in a paper read before the Wen
Yu Hui (Literary Culture Society) in that city.
He has noted the four factors of the Renaissance
as being : —

1st. The STUFF of which the new civilization
was made, i.e. the native mental and moral vigour
of the Keltic-Teutonic peoples arrived at their bloom.

2nd. The preceptor of barbaric Europe’s youth,

i.e. the Hebraic-Hellenic teaching given mainly by
the Church, with emphasis on moral and religious
lines.

3rd. The determiner of the consciousness of
the New Europe, i.e. the attacks of Oriental peoples.

4th. The starter of the new civilization, i.e. the
impact of the Hebraic-Hellenic culture in its redis-
covered freshness and glory.

To these four elements he compares the following
similar elements in the Chinese Renaissance : —

1. The stuff of the new civilization — ^thc Chinese
people.

2. The preceptor — the scholarship of the Ch’ing
period.

3. The determiner of consciousness — the aggressive
West.

4. The starter — modern Western civilization.

This comparison is one of peculiar interest and

suggests certain reflections with which we may
close this chapter.

220 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

1. Comparing in each case the stuff of the new
civilization, as he calls it, I am not disposed to rank
the Chinese as one whit less capable mentally than
the races of Northern Europe. We have a different
development determined largely by the fact that the
Chinese have chosen the life of agriculture, trade
and learning rather than the life of warfare and
wandering. The pause in the development of
China is accounted for mainly by her extreme
reverence for the past, her written language, which
imposes so great a "burden on the memory and gives
little chance to the student to develop initiative
and ^.imagination, her crowded population, and the
fact thalt her scholars did not use the inductive
method and so never really started on the path
that has led the West to such rich new fields during
the last three centuries. To-day China’s period of
arrested development has come to an end and the
mental enlargement and emancipation which are
coming open up unspeakable possibilities. Whether
Chinese will show skill in research and the plodding
perseverance which have done so much to unlock
new doors to Western scholars it is difficult to estimate.
But I believe they will, and that China’s contribution
to scientific advance in the next century or two
will be a very large one.

2. When we compare the second element, the
preceptor, I am bound to confess that I do not think
the Chinese classics with all their rich stores contain
as much for human progress and betterment as did
the Hebraic -Hellenic culture. But we cannot consider
this element apart from the fourth, the starter,
and here we have in the one case the rediscovery of
the principles and ideas out of which the existing
order had actually been shaped, and in the other
case the impact of an entirely new set of ideas. That
is to say, in the one case we have a readjustment of

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 221

a civilization to its own origins, in the other case
we have the reaction of two different streams upon
one another. This leads me to the view that China’s
Renaissance may have even more momentous conse-
quences for humanity than that of the fifteenth
century in Europe. This is making a very great
claim. Yet I think anyone who has been brought
up in the Hebraic-Hellenic tradition, and who has
entered deeply into the spirit of China, must feel
that there are bewildering and alluring possibilities
for the human race in the impact of these two streams
of thought. The pity of it is that Ihe serious attempt
to meet this situation is almost confined to the
Far East, and that Europe, which needs t]ie same
reinforcement, is not adequately sharing in the
tasks of thought.

3. The problem in the mind of many will be
the question as to what is to be the influence
of all this upon Christianity in the Far East. Most
of the leaders of the movement have expressed
themselves as opposed to Christianity, and indeed
to any religion in the fullest sense of that term.
They regard Christianity as one of the outworn
superstitions which must be discarded by thinking
people. Mr. Ch’ien Yuan Tung, one of the recognized
leaders of the movement, has recently expressed
himself as accepting the historical Jesus as a great
teacher whose views have been expounded by Tolstoi.
He says that this writer has in his drama and novels
exhausted the fundamental ideas of the Christian
religion and left nothing unturned that ought to be
turned to light. He believes that thei^ are ideas
in the New Testament which must be discarded in
the light of modern knowledge and changed social
conditions, and that the Old Testament is not im-
portant from the Chinese point of view. While
admitting that Jesus Christ lived out His own

222 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

principles of universal love, he does not think that
His followers have truly caught His spirit. He says :

“ We can do reverence to Christ, because He it
was that had the revolutionary spirit and the courage
that broke down old habits, created new conceptions,
and slavishly imitated nobody. Instead of catching
this great revolutionary spirit, Christians have merely
worshipped Him, and have thus wronged Christ!

This may be said to represent the middle position.
On the one side there are those who liave formed
the anti-Christian or anti-Religious Society and who
follow the teachings of Bertrand Russell, and other
Westerners, in identifying Christianity with all the
wrongs jdone in the name of Christ by His weak
and misguided followers. On the other side, there
are some strong Christians who are recognized as
true leaders of the movement and who are presenting
their faith in a way that appeals to the scientific
mind.

I think it may fairly be said that the New Thought
Movement opens a new door for the presentation
of the deepest aspect of the Christian faith. Challeng-
ing all authority, it is not going to be convinced
by a purely authoritarian presentation, whether the
authority be Church or Bible. But, broadly speaking,
the mind of Young China is ready to consider truth
presented in a clear way as something that will appeal
to the inward sense of truth in the individual. While
there is an element of sheer iconoclasm, impatient
of any system that involves any kind of restraint,
and while there is also an element of ultra-nationalism
that despises Christianity as a foreign religion, there
are many who sincerely desire to find an answer to
China’s need and are willing to listen to truth from
whatever quarter it may come. To this more earnest
and reverent mind the Christian faith will appe^
* Chinese Recorder, October 1922.

THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT 228

just so far as it is seen to have social value and to
face fearlessly all the facts ^of science and history.

In his treatment of reform movements in India,
J. N. Farquhar shows how even those who oppose
Christianity are actually applying the standards of
Christ to judge the theory and practice of rival
systems. Something of the same kind is happening
in China. In spite of much failure in vision and in
action on the part of His followers, Jesus Christ is
increasingly seen by the youth of China as One who
commands their respect and fulfiis their ideal of a
human life. If the efforts of Christian teachers is
merely to impose on Young China a foreign type
of thought and life with little or no reference to
China’s past, the great body of young Chinese will
turn away from it, and quite rightly. If it be rather
to lead them to see how their own deepest aspirations
can be fulfilled, to work out to a higher point all
that is true in China’s social life and philosophy,
to give fresh courage and hope in the task of creating
a new China, in short, to help China to be worthy
of her own past and a helpful member of the family
of nations, then the Christian message will be welcomed
by all the best elements in the New Thought
Movement.

The National Christian Council for China has been
formed during the past year, largely under the
leadership of the younger generation of Chinese
Christians, in the hope that the Christians of China
can stand together as one man, for the adequate
presentation of the Christian faith to the mind and
heart of China. Very much depends on how this
task is tackled. It is my own conviction that there
is in the Christian faith, in its simple essence, some-
thing which China needs to bring to perfection this
amazing movement of youth. If a spirit of arrogant
self-sufficiency should creep into it, if its leaders

224 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

shut out light that comes from suspected sources
or through imperfect channels, if its ideals of truth
and beauty and personal* freedom are not grounded
in the belief that the universe is ordered by One
who is a free person Himself, the embodiment of all
truth and beauty, then I fear a collapse, a failure
to carry through to any great accomplishment the
splendid dreams of this new era. But if China’s
young manhood and womanhood see in Christ the
answer to the riddle of the universe and the crown
of China’s own life, I believe this movement will
give to the world a gift beyond words to express.

CHAPTER XI

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD.

We now come to what is by far* the hardest part
of our task. We must forsake the historical method
and attempt to look into the future. While I entirely
disclaim any power to forecast China’s destiny or
her influence upon the rest of the world, I think
we may look at the present direction of movement,
estimate the strength of the various forces and see
what possibilities open up before us as we engage
upon this task. We may also make certain suggestions
as to what is needed on the part of China herself
and on the part of other nations if the better possi-
bilities are to be realized and the worse avoided.

Three broadly-differentiated possibilities open up
before China to-day. The question as to which of
them will be followed depends partly upon China
and partly upon the nations with which she has to
deal. For good or ill China’s fate is now bound up
with that of the whole family of nations. There may
be some who would like to see it otherwise, and
who wish that China might still pursue her age-long
course in solitary glory. I sometimes meet those
who say, for example, of foreign missions to China,
“ Why not leave China alone ? She has not asked
for our civilization or our commerce or our religion.
She would be better without them. We have no
right to force them upon her.” Such talk is, at this
stage of history, entirely beside the mark. A hundred

15

226 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

years ago there might have been wisdom in it ; at
any rate, we might have discussed the issue with
some hope that the decision reached in debate could
be translated into politics. To-day, the discussion is
purely academic, and we need not enter upon it.
I only mention the matter to insist upon the point
that our interest lies in an entirely different direc-
tion. We are concerned to see that the contacts
which we recognize to be inevitable shall be of the
right kind and made in the right way. Our task
is not to dam the stream but to direct its force
into the most productive channels.

Now, it is a curious and somewhat alarming fact
that Western influences are very much greater in
China than the West itself at all appreciates. What
is happening in the main is not that a deliberate
and thought-out policy is directing the action of
Western nations in their relations with China, but
that at a hundred unobserved points this influence
is being exerted, and that most people in England
and other Western countries neither know nor care
about what is happening. Many things are being
done in our name, or in such a way as to involve
that name, about which most of us are sublimely
ignorant. The West is judged not by the abstraction
which we call Western culture, but by the acts of
this merchant, that missionary or the other consul,
and by just those books and papers which happen
to reach the people of China. Without any doubt,
the biggest fact in China to-day, that which is most
creative qf difficulty and most seriously affecting
the whole nation, is the impact of the Western world.
And yet we of the West are almost unaware of the
fact that we are thus disturbing the life of this great
nation. We are engrossed in our own problems
and very rarely think of China at all.

Arnold Toynbee, in his recent treatment of the

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 22T

Near and Middle East, has observed the same point,
and the student of the Par East cannot fail to be
struck by the interesting similarities as well as the
curious differences in the two problems. At the
beginning of his volume. The Western Question in
Greece and Turkey, he pictures the savage watching
an eclipse of the moon and unable to realize that
it is being blotted out by nothing less than the shadow
of the earth on which he stands. So the shadow of
the West is cast on the East, and we stand by scarcely
able to realize the true cause of ♦the trouble. Mr.
Toynbee says : “ Just because we are aware of what
passes in our own minds, and know that interest in
Eastern affairs is almost entirely absent from them,
it is difficult for us to realize the profound influence
on the East which we actually, though unconsciously,
exercise. This conjunction of great effect on other
people’s lives with little interest in or intention with
regard to them, though it is common enough in
human life, is also one of the principal causes of
human misfortunes. . . • Either the overshadowing
figure must turn its head, perceive the harm that
unintentionally it has been doing and move out of
the light ; or its victims, after vain attempts to
arouse its attention and request it to change its
posture, must stagger to their feet and stab it in
the back.”^

This passage suggests the problem which confronts
China. The three possibilities to which I referred
may be described as disintegration, denationalization
and reintegration. The first of these seemed imminent
twenty-five years ago. At that time China, under
an effete monarchy, beset by foreign Powers, self-
seeking and jealous of one another with little apprecia-
tion of or reverence for the country they were threaten-
ing, seemed on the point of collapse economically
' Op- cit., p. 2.

228 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

and politically. The policy of spheres of influence
seemed likely to lead on to [open partition ; one
looked in vain for any force strong enough to hold
back the forces either of inward decay or of external
pressure. As we have seen, two things happened.
Internally China began to awake and through her
students and commercial men showed a power of
thought and action which surprised those who
judged her only by her inefficient and ccjrrupt states-
men. The change from without was inaugurated by
America and backed by Great Britain, when the policy
of the open door was announced and followed up
by that of the International Consortium. This held
up, for*'a while at any rate, the aggressive policies
of Western States. China has been given a breathing
space, but it cannot be said that the danger of dis-
integration is wholly passed. Something more is
needed in both directions, and in particular China
must awaken yet more fully to the activities of the
situation and set her own house in order.

The second possibility is that China may to a large
extent lose her distinctive character in her efforts to
meet the West on its own terms. It cannot be said
that Japan has avoided this danger. She has certainly
been successful in meeting Western aggression. She
has learned her lesson very well. But in doing so
it seems to me that Japan has lost something of real
value, and may lose yet more. Her recent efforts in
the sphere of economic imperialism may be more
true to her inner nature than would similar action
be in the Qase of China. But I fear that what Mr.
Toynbee says of Turkey is in some measure true
also of Japan. He says : “ Though the Ottoman
Empire, by adopting Western methods, has achieved
what seemed impossible a century and a half ago
and has survived until our day, it has never so far
gone much beyond the minimum degree of Western-

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 229

ization necessary to save it, at any given moment,
from going under. It has borrowed more technique
than ideas, more military* technique than adminis-
trative, more administrative than economic and
educational.” ^ The extreme forms of nationalism
now seen in Japan are the product of the mixing
of two civilizations, and the realization on the
part of Japanese leaders that, while she needed
to accept many Western ideas and methods in
order to save herself from destruction, she had
nevertheless something which she must preserve.
How far she has succeeded it is too soon to say.
Certainly her present state can only be regarded
as a phase through which she must pass either to a
more complete Westernization of her institutions or to
a new and deeper synthesis of East and West.

In the case of China the problem is even graver.
China’s nature would be even more deeply violated
were she to become a militarist and imperialist people,
and the world would thus lose one of the chief
remaining forces in the direction of sanity and peace.
The events I have traced in this volume are tending
to drive China into militarism and into other Western
vices. It is amazing to me that the movement in
this direction is not far stronger than it is. China
has had every provocation, and yet, on the whole,
has kept her head. Nevertheless the militarists of
China have now an immense power, and it is hard
to see how she is to come through the present phase
and how the civil authority is actually going to
assert itself over the military. The same kind of
struggle is going on in the industrial world, and it
is even more difficult to see how China is to achieve^
an industrial system that is not a mere copy of
Western capitalism. The signs of the times seem to
point to a somewhat long period during which China,

^ Op. cit., p. 13.

280 CmNA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

in the struggle to avoid the first alternative, dis^
integration, falls a victim to the second evil and
becomes so deeply influenced by the West as to
lose, in some measure, her own soul. I suppose
no one who knows China would anticipate so complete
a submergence of her ancient culture as fell upon
the civilization of Central America under the
influence of the more virile and dominating European
nations. But I can imagine a period whemthe practical
necessities of the case will impose upon China an
industrial and political development so foreign to
her own genius as to cause quite a long submergence
of some of the finer elements in her own culture.
While we cannot draw any hope from the contempla-
tion of political and commercial happenings, we can
see in the world of thought and religion some indica-
tion that this disaster may be avoided.

The only other alternative, as I see it, is that
new synthesis which I have spoken of as a re-integra-
tion. Only by boldly grasping the nettle will the
sting be avoided. To copy the methods of the West
in commerce, politics or religion, and to seek to
preserve unchanged the ancient springs of conduct,
is to court disaster. The mere use of methods may
seem to be a small thing, but sooner or later the
methods one uses dictate one’s philosophy of life.
A man cannot go on using a fraudulent system or
practising brutality without warping his moral sense
or brutalizing his finer instincts. A nation cannot
devote itself to the perfecting of military methods
without being enslaved by the spirit of militarism.
There is no solution for China along these lines.
If she simply copies Western models of method, she
will inevitably become Westernized to her own great
loss.

This is where we see the significance of the New
Thought Movement. The attempt to search out

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 281

the inner significance of Western institutions must
be prosecuted with patience and sympathy. A
critical judgment must be .brought to bear upon all
that the West has to offer. That which is good
must be understood, assimilated and worked over
by Chinese minds, and it must be brought into rela-
tion to all that is best in Chinese life and thought.
Every great advance in history seems to have been
in some measure a re-integration, the mixing of
strains of thought on types of personality that have
developed on somewhat differen^t lines, and the
production of a new thing. Stagnation is due to
inbreeding, and if the process is carried too far, the
impact of another strain may lead to utter decay,
and the submergence of one type. We have seen how
China’s civilization preserved its peculiar character
in spite of the impact of foreign cultures so that it
might be said that China conquered her conquerors.
These other civilizations, in the main, proved unable
to break up or seriously affect the strong social and
philosophical system on which China’s life was based.
Perhaps Buddhism had more effect than any other,
but even Buddhism scarcely turned the main stream
of Chinese thought, although greatly affecting the
lives of her people in certain ways. Broadly speaking.
Buddhism was more deeply affected by China than
was China by Buddhism.

China suffered from two causes. In the first
place her early development of a high type of civiliza-
tion left her facile princeps among the surrounding
peoples. She developed rapidly to a point far in
advance of her time and had no serious rival to chal-
lenge her supremacy. In the second place she was,
geographically so situated that she lost the stimula-
tion of interchange of thought with the civilizations
developing around the Mediterranean basin. The
occasional contacts were not sustained enough to

282 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

lead to any real mutual understanding even in the
time of Kublai Khan, when we see the nearest
approach to a meeting oi Europe and China. For
one system of thought to remain in isolated posses-
sion of the field for upwards of two thousand years
is a phenomenon for which we have no parallel in
European history. This seems to be one of the chief
causes for the lack of progressive development in
China. No doubt there were others §uch as the
nature of the written language with its onormous
demand upon the ipemory, the large measure of con-
tentment among the people generally, and so forth.^

Be that as it may, we have now the phenomenon
of^a*civilization long holding undisputed sway over
the minds of millions, meeting another civilization
no less virile and much more aggressive. The problem
centres round the nature of the resulting product.
Has the process of inbreeding been carried so far
as to involve the absorption of the old by the new ?
Young China answers this question with an emphatic
negative. The very fact that her own scholars are
probing into the secrets of Western progress goes
far to show that she is right in making this reply.
No easy superficial adjustments will meeet the
case. It is not by working for quick returns that
we shall solve the problem of China to-day — whether
we expect these in a rapidly democratized government,
in a Westernized army, in a wholesale acceptance of
a foreign religion, or in the development of a com-
mercial system duplicating that of London or New
York. The real revolution in China has scarcely
begun. Foreign observers have been critical and
/.ynical in regard to the results of what has been

* An interesting discussion of the problem will be found in
Mr. Wells’s Outline of History (pp. 312-16), and also in Hubbard’s
The Fate of Empires. To these I would refer the reader, as it lies
somewhat outside the main purpose of this chapter to deal more
fully with the matter.

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 288

so styled. This change was a mere incident in the
big thing that is happening under the surface and
has gained quite a false prominence in the thoughts
of both Chinese and foreigners. The Chinese word
for revolution, Ge Ming, is, I believe, derived from
a passage in a very ancient volume, The Book of
Changes, which may be rendered as follows :

“ Nature changes and so the seasons fulfil their
times. Tang and Wu [were those on whom came the]
Change of Plan (Ge Ming). [The change came] in
full accord with [the will of] Ggd and in complete
response to [the needs of] man. How great is the
time of Change ! ”

Here we seem to catch a glimpse of the inevitable-
ness and the significance of revolutionary changes.
With a certainty like that of the changing seasons, t
the affairs of men move on from one stage to the^
next. The real revolution has two aspects — the
fulfilment of a divine purpose and the satisfaction
of a human aspiration. The new synthesis is being
worked out in some far greater way than any of us
can see. The West brings its doctrine of individualism
based upon a conviction that Heaven is no impersonal
force or blind destiny, but a creative loving mind,
one who can truly be called our Father. ^ China
brings her massive social philosophy, a system
representing the last word of the East on the principles
which should bind men together in a living bond of
responsibility and service. From the deeper blending
of these two strains of thought who can tell what
may be born ? Mazzini’s words come with peculiar
significance to the student of this * wondrously
interesting problem : “ Life is one ; the individu^]
and society are its two necessary manifestations ;
life considered singly and life in its relation to others.
Flames kindled upon a common altar, they approach
each other in rising, until they mingle together in

284 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

God.” Is the gift of China to the world to be a new
light upon this age-long problem, to show new direc-
tions in which human soQiety can approximate to
the ideal that is to the divine purpose, the end of
all our living ?

Turning from this speculation, let us enquire into
some of the conditions that should help to save China
from the dangers of the first and second causes and
make it possible for her to follow the third. First,
let us look at the matter from China’s own point of
view, considering wl^at internal changes are indicated,
and then let us try to find out what policy on the
part of Western nations will be of the largest service
to China ;n the near future. I cannot pretend to deal
with these questions in the order of urgency, because
several must be worked at concurrently and they
touch widely different regions of life. ^

1. China needs a strong, unified, constitutional
government, I am by no means an ardent advocate
of the modern State idea, and I think many evils
of Western life can be directly traced to over-
centralization and to a false theory of the State,
Nevertheless I feel sure that if China is to maintain
her own culture and to progress in the right direction
she greatly needs a strong, united government. I
do not believe this can be brought into existence
save by some system of Federated Provinces,
with a large amount of autonomy. It may even be
necessary at this stage to grant more power to the
Provincial Assembly than will be ultimately desirable,
because there is so much natural distrust of any
central government, and so much fear that any
parliament sitting in Peking, however elected, will
become the tool of the militarists. The Southern
and Western Provinces will not come in on any

1 Compare also the closing sections of Chapter V for certain
practical suggestions.

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 285

system which does not give them very considerable
powers, and much could rightly be sacrificed at
this stage to avoid further fighting. The most per-
plexing problem is how can China shake off the
iron grip of her own militarists and re-establish
the civil power as supreme. The military leaders
command large sums of money, and can use their
financial power to strengthen their hold on the
machine of government. One after another has
disappointed expectations by proving his promises
of reform to be empty and by vsing his power for
selfish ends. Such a degree of enlightenment among
the troops as would make them unwilling to, move
without guarantees of constitutional reform is hardly
to be expected in the near future. It is possible to
imagine the lesser generals agreeing that unity
and constitutional government must be established
so as to bring the war-lords to reason. I cannot
say that I expect an early establishment of the
kind of government I desiderate, but I believe much
could be done by agreement among the leading
commercial men in the country. The economic
argument seems to be the one most likely to convince
the militarists, and if the banks and financiers of
China could combine on a policy and in the support
of a few strong personalities who could carry it out,
I think it would not be long before a move was made
in the right direction. It would be necessary that
the commercial and educational forces should unite,
for the latter have great power among the common
people. The recent appointment of people’s delegates
to Washington by the combined Educational Associa-
tions and Chambers of Commerce all over the country
shows that such a concordat is not impossible. I
believe a well-thought-out policy, including financial
reorganization, judicial reform, electoral legislation,
and a definite plan for the disbandment of many

286 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

of the troops and their absorption into civil life,
a scheme of provincial self-government and a federal
Parliament, would rally mAny of the best minds in
China, and if supported by the bodies mentioned,
by local guilds and individual leaders of probity
and ability, would soon appear as an alternative
policy which no militarist could afford to oppose.
I cannot here go into detaUs on the various matters
and it would be somewhat presumptuous to do so.
But I feel that a main difficulty is that there is no
intelligible programme before the public which
commands the assent of substantial persons. The
militarist is condemned for self-seeking and domina-
tion b*y his personal force. The reformers of the school
of Sun Yat Sen are condemned for a somewhat wild
excess and a failure in constructive statesmanship.
Those who hold a middle position are constantly
turning to catch the support of one side or the other
and lack the strength to take their own line and
press forward with it in face of criticism. Meanwhile
the common man suffers all the time. Brigands
abound ; commerce languishes ; laws are not en-
forced ; uncertainty prevails. The need for a unified
national policy is patent to all observers.

From the point of view of Western nations, this
need is almost equally great. It cannot be expected
that foreign enterprise in China will go forward
or that money will be lent to her for her development
unless China shows that she can handle her own
affairs with vigour and integrity. At present there
is hesitation on the part of foreigners and foreign
Governments, because they do not know which way
tkte cat will jump. If China could reorganize her
political system and present a united front to the
world, there would soon be a larger disposition to
help her, or, shall I say, a greater possibility for
that disposition which already exists to express

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 287

itself. China’s friends in other lands are often per-
plexed and paralyzed by this inner weakness and
disunion which they believe to be a temporary
phase, largely due to Western influences, as we have
seen, but which so long as it persists, stops the mouth
of those who would advocate her cause.

2. China needs a higher moral standard among her
public men. I have already referred to some leading
Chinese citizens who are notable examples of the
combination of intelligence and honesty. I should
be the last to assert that such qualities are not to
be found in China. But I cannot close my eyes
to the fact that this lack of public honour in many
of China’s leading men is one of the gravest^ dangers
threatening her successful emergence from her present
perils. When the Republic was proclaimed many
hoped that a new era had dawned and that peculation
and graft would come to an end. These hopes have
been sadly disappointed. Every business man in
the Far East knows that in commercial dealings
Chinese have a high standard of honesty, comparing
favourably with that of any nation. Why is it,
one wonders, that a similar standard is so uncommon
among her officials ? When the public purse is in
the keeping of Chinese, the temptation to take
from it seems often to be uncontrollable. Again and
again China has suffered from men of reputation
and standing who have preferred personal profit to
public good. How few are the Chinese of whom
one could write what Livy wrote of a great Roman :
“ The following year died Publius Valerius, by com-
mon consent the foremost man in the arts of war
and peace. His fame was immense ; his private
property was so scanty that there was not enough
to pay the expense of his funeral. He was buried
at public cost.” (Livy II, 16.) The creation of this
type of public servant is an even more pressing need

288 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

than the establishment of a unified government or
the reorganization of the finances. The fact that
business morality is high^* leads to the hope that
some of China’s statesmen in the future may be
drawn from the realm of commerce. I also believe
that the Chinese Christian Church has a large contribu-
tion to make in this realm. But it is possible at
once to quicken public opinion so that the demand
that such men be sought and be give^n positions
of trust may make itself heard. It is also possible
to introduce into public life certain very necessary
safeguards which honest officials would welcome
and which would check the dishonest. Publicity of
alb public accounts with full and accurate details
of expenditure, a reliable system of audit, plans for
the impeachment of unworthy officials, adequate
salaries and rules preventing public officials from
being financially interested in undertakings that
might be helped by their official acts — ^these are
among the more obvious safeguards which would
materially help in the direction indicated,

3. China needs to ivorJc out her own industrial
system. Far more thought should be directed to this
question. I could not pretend to have reached any
conclusion in regard to it, but I am persuaded that
an unthinking acceptance of the competitive and
capitalistic system as evolved in the West will mean
disaster for China. I do not believe that State Social-
ism is at all possible at present, both because of the
low degree of general education and because of the
weakness of the Government. I doubt in any case
whether any highly centralized system is true to
©ninese ideas. We have already seen some of the
factors in the problem and I cannot do more here
than urge that Chinese financial and business leaders
should get together with her students of economics
and with sympathetic Western business men and

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 289

economists and try to think out lines of progress.
It is probable that many experiments will have to
be made, and not a few of these may fail through
lack of some of the essential conditions of success.
A measure of paternal or patriarchal government \
may be needed for a generation or two. But much
depends on whether this is animated by the desire
for personal profit and power or by an idea of public
service directed to a larger development of industrial
self-government when the time is ripe. China might
well give an example to the world of a country
passing by peaceful stages from the stage of agricul-
ture and home industries to that of large-scale pro-
duction. The common-sense and adaptability oi her
people, led by those who can use the experience of
other countries and wisely relate it to China's own
system, might enable her to do what no other country
has done. This would indeed be a gift to the world.

4. China needs to improve her system of communica-
tions, In one sense this is only a single item in a large
programme of industrial development, and I am not
so much concerned here to urge the accelerating of
that process as to point out the importance of
development in other directions not less rapidly
than in this one. Nevertheless, I introduce this point
because of its relation to other aspects of the question.
To meet the varied economic problems which beset
China to-day it is obvious that the building of roads
and railways, and the reconstruction of canals and
the opening up of harbours, are prime necessities.
One of the great difiScuties in the way of normal
trade and in meeting special emergencies is lack of
transport facilities. As already mentioned, I thinlft
this \^ork should come increasingly under the central
government, and herein is an additional reason for
urging my first point. Over and above this there
is the fact that improved communication will help

240 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

to unify the country, to open up remoter places
to new ideas, to facilitate the movement towards a
common spoken language^ and to check lawlessness
and brigandage. The Roman instinct was true in
driving great main roads through a conquered country
so as to make the new government effective. China’s
problem of unsettlement and disunion will not be
fully solved without a considerable development of
her means of internal communication.

5. China needs greatly to strengthen her educational
work. No problem in China to-day deserves more
attention than the increase and improvement of her
education. The remarkable progress already made
shores what can be done. A new educational
system has been evolved in the space of some ten
years. Schools, colleges, educational associations,
a vast output of text-books, speak to the earnest-
ness with which the country is facing her
task. At times one is discouraged to find very
inefficient work, the name of Western education
without the thing, extremes due to a superficial
acceptance of ideas that are not understood. But
taking the country as a whole and considering all
the difficulties faced, I am amazed that so much
has been done. There is a vast deal more to do.
Teachers are often trained in a very theoretical way
and supplied with many more ideas than they can
assimilate ; there is far too much reliance upon
text-books ; skilled inspection is sorely needed ;
students are put through their examinations by
authorities who are more concerned to save their
face than to ensure good scholarship. I think one
*of the chief dangers is that great principles, such as
freedom and democracy, have become too cheap.
Everyone talks in such terms. Many have not grasped
their meaning in any fundamental way. I am not
greatly concerned for the rapid extension of schools

CfflNA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 241

in China. I am concerned that what is taught should
be far more thorough, and that teachers should be
trained to think for themseljres and lead their students
to do the same. A teacher who knows only his text-
book is afraid of questions lest he should be floored.
China needs teachers who will set their faces against
mere memory work, in which their students excel,
and force them to work their own way through their
problems. The schools need to make a special study
of how to present new ideas so that they may be
related to old customs. For exangiple, the problem
of freedom in relation to the social system should
be tackled boldly and constructively. Students
should be helped to see that they must accept i3ei taip
limitations and conditions in order to work out
any true self-development. Patriotism must be
related to the ideal of international service. Now
that the ethical teachings of the sages are somewhat
at a discount much more thought should be given
to the building of character.^

6. China needs to reorganize her judicial system.
One of the chief complaints that China makes in
regard to Western Powers is the continuation of
extra-territoriality. While some of us would be
willing, as individuals, to forego these rights and
trust ourselves to the Chinese authorities, it is not
to be expected that any considerable number of
foreigners would take a course attended now with
so much risk. There is still far too much corruption
in the Chinese courts to give any assurance of fair
dealing, and the laws should be altered so as to
make torture impossible and to reduce 'sentences
generally. Penal history shows that the effect of^
lighter sentences is not, as some fear, to increase
crime, and I have no doubt that the experience of
other countries would be repeated by China. In
^ See also reference to Adult Educatmi, pp. 97-8.

16

m CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Chinese courts the object is to secure satisfaction
to the aggrieved party even more than to punish
the guilty, and that is socfar to the good. I do not
think China should simply adopt British or other
Western judicial and penal methods. But I think
that a careful study of the best writings on these
questions, a larger understanding of the causes of
crime and a more persistent effort to remove them,
along with an improvement of the courts and a
better system of appeal, would lead to kuch advance
and would not oply greatly benefit China, but also
create a new confidence in her on the part of Western
Powers, leading before long to the surrender of extra-
terrttojjial rights and the need for treaty ports and
concessions. China would thus have taken a big
step towards becoming mistress in her own house.

I do not, of course, suppose that these points
cover all that is to be said on the question of what
China can do to meet her present difficulties. On
financial reorganization I have scarcely touched.
Great evils like gambling and opium-smoking, which
urgently need attention, I have not even mentioned.
But I think if the matters I have specified were to
receive the attention they deserve, China would
soon be well on the way to discovering how to deal
with many other questions. She would be doing
her part to fit herself for a worthy place in the family
of nations.

What do the other members of the family owe to
China ? Here one has to begin with the frankest recog-
nition of their failure hitherto to act the part of
brothers hi any large and consistent way. Again and
again they have appeared rather as thieves and robbers,
and no one can blame China if she has been unwilling
to enter such a family. Now that she is moving
into the circle, should we not seriously consider
how to mend our ways ? If the West is to gain from

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 248

her contact With China those things which China
undoubtedly has to give, it is high time that the
West treated her in a diffefent way.

1. The West must give China time to work out her
salvation. Perhaps the deepest tragedy in this whole
story has been the way in which slow-moving, patient
China has been rushed off her feet by the impetuous
West. A little more patience, a little more under-
standing of her difficulties, and can there be any
doubt that China and the West would have met
and found fellowship with far less «Eriction and mis-
understanding ? The breathless pace of Western life
has been too much for China. The worker on the land
meets the town labourer and listens with wonder tfe
all his tales, unable to follow the quick changes of
his thought. But the worker on the land may be
thinking deeper thoughts, far more worthy to be
perserved for the enrichment of our common life.
So China, thinking her long thoughts, has met this
impetuous, pushing stranger, and because she could
not at once learn his jargon and follow his example,
he has voted her a dullard and only fit to be bullied.
The time has come when all this should cease. China
may yet tax our patience as she has done in the
past. We may be exasperated and anxious to quicken
the pace. But if we understand the things that
belong to our peace and to the peace of China, we
shall be very careful not to lose our patience or our
temper. China has had too much interference from
foreign Powers, even sometimes quite well meant
interference. Pushing in, even to help, may damage
unintentionally. If China asks for help, that is
another matter. Advice is perhaps justifiable — at
least, I have acted on this principle in this chapter.
But any attempt to rush China into this or that
policy seems to me to be fraught with danger. In
picking men for diplomatic service in China the first

244 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

quality demanded should be patience. My motto
for the next ten or twenty years would be : “ Let
China have a chance tcf see what she can do for
herself.^’

2. The West must seek to understand China better.
It is well that the old idea of the Chinese as semi-
civilized barbarians has largely disappeared. But it
must not be replaced merely by a vague sense of
China’s greatness and ancient splendour. We need
to know what are the sources of such greatness.
We need to concentrate attention not on the queer,
superficial differences between Celestials and our-
selves, but rather on the deeper fact of our common
humanity and on the real significance of those
elements in Chinese life that at first sight baffle us.
Such a study is its own reward. It brings insight
into aspects of human life which we should otherwise
overlook ; it quickens our imagination ; it helps us
to join in this common quest for a new synthesis
between two such different civilizations. For it is
not only China that is in danger of loss through in-
breeding and prejudice relative to other types of
thought than her own. It may fairly be said that
the students of China are far more alive to the fact
that they have something to gain from the West
than are the students of Europe and America to the
converse. Yet both are true, and our loss from
such blindness will not be small.

Such patient effort to understand China cannot
fail to develop a deep respect. Intercourse between
nations as between individuals can only be truly
based if there is mutual respect. The old contempt
must wholly disappear. Yet how slow it is to go !
Why, we are even fostering it in our plays and our
movies. The other day my youngest son told a
school-fellow that three Chinese gentlemen were
coming to stay at our home. He was warned against

CmNA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 245

them on the ground that they were sure to kill him,
and when he remonstrated and said they were good
men and friends of his father, the boy (of about
ten years of age) answered that he knew all about
Chinamen ; they were cruel, wicked people ; he had
seen lots of them at the pictures ! The incident
may seem to be laughable, but it is full of terrible
warning. For every person who reads such a volume
as the present one, there are hundreds of thousands
who see the pictures. Children are growing up with
this false idea of the Chinese and of other races,
and these children will be the makers of public
opinion, the virtual creators of national policies in
years to come. The poison is a deadly one, and some
antidote must be provided. These considerations
should give one furiously to think.

3. The West must show China that she will deal
tvith her problems in an absolutely fair way. The
distrust of Western nations which followed the
betrayal of Versailles has been one of the most
serious facts in China’s relations with the West.
It gave China the conviction that even when her
case was unanswerable and was presented at the
bar of humanity, her voice would not be listened
to, because she could not back it by cold steel. Such
an impression was disastrous both for China and for
the West. Unless it can be removed (and Washington
has done something to remove it), one of the chief
causes tending to turn China from her true path
will remain. In the work of the League of Nations
we of the West have another chance. The Opium
Commission of the League is important, 'not merely
because it is dealing with a very grave evil th^
threatens the life of China, but because, according to
the sincerity and thoroughness with which the matter
is tackled, the West has yet another chance of showing
her honest goodwill. If real justice is done to China,

24e CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

and if Western nations can turn from profit and
deal fairly with her, they will be doing the finest
thing they can to show Ohina that they really mean
to deal with her as a sister nation, and they will in
truth and not in word only be welcoming her into
the family.

4. The West should give China the chance of seeing
the best aspects of her civilization. Often Western
nations have presented to China mainly their less
attractive side. The mailed fist or the gunboat,
the unscrupulous trader pressing his opium on
China, the traveller patronizing or supercilious —
these are manifestations that we have cause to be
heartily ashamed of. Happily the Chinese of to-day
are shrewd enough to discriminate between the
different aspects of our civilization and are willing
to receive the good while they reject the bad. But it
should be the earnest aim of all good Europeans and
Americans to bring to China those things of which
we have no cause to be ashamed. China has called to
her aid advisers and lecturers and specialists from
foreign lands ; she has welcomed the splendid service
of foreign administrators like Sir Robert Hart, who
have made China’s good their chief interest ; she
is not slow to recognize all that has come to her
through the widespread work of Christian missions.
In this last sphere I have already pointed out that
an element of patronage and a desire merely to
proselytize have to some extent marred a great
service. But it is increasingly true that the missionary
movement is inspired by the desire to bring to China
what is indeed the best thing we have to offer and
to give her the chance to receive it and adapt it to
her special needs. Believing as I do that the teaching
and spirit of Jesus Christ are the source of the finest
living and thinking in the West, and that they have
helped to save us from our natural tendencies to

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 247

harshness, pride and impatience, I consider that in
offering these to China, the West is at least seeking
to make some honourable amends for the display
of harshness, pride and impatience in many of our
dealings with her* If the work of missions can display
the opposite qualities — kindliness, humility and
patience — there is no doubt that it will do something
to soften the contacts and to purge away our sins.
But it can do more than this. There is an ever
new quality in the ancient truth displayed in that
wonderful Life. Meeting the child-races in Africa
or the South Seas, the miracle of a rebirth of their
national life has been witnessed again and again,
and unsuspected possibilities have been discuveiied
in these simple peoples. Meeting the ancient civiliza
tion of China the same miracles are already being
witnessed, and in many a hospital and college a
new creation has taken place in individual lives.
This I have seen time and again with my own eyes,
and thereby I am assured that Christ has a gift for
China unspeakably great. Without this gift I do
not see how China can weather the storm. Whether
she acknowledges the source or not, I believe that she
will find that she needs the discovery of a personal
God to reinforce her ethical system and to give her
a philosophy that can carry her through the time of
change. Compared with the great educational and
medical work done by the missions, this service is
even more significant and far-reaching. Nothing
will be so great an aid to China in attempting this
new synthesis as a demonstration in life of those
terrific principles of purity, gentleness, devotion,
forgiveness, that we see in Jesus of Nazareth. MaRy
of China’s sages have sought to express in words
some of those deeper truths that were embodied in
that wonderful life. To read the writings of Meh TzI
on Universal Love is to be transported into the

248 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

atmosphere of the Gospels. Again and again he
argues that this principle is good not only in theory,
but also in practice. Meficius, in one of his most
telling passages, writes : ‘‘ Love conquers that

which is not love, just as water subdues fire. Those,
however, who now-a-days practise love, do it as
if with one cupful of water they could extinguish
a whole wagon-load of burning fuel. This conduct,
moreover, greatly encourages those w<ho are not
loving — its end is ruin!” Confucius writes: “They
sought love and found it ; what had they to rue ?
Is love so far a thing ? I yearn for love. Love is
here. A man’s strength is sufficient for the practise
of. lovb/ but the people do not try. Should there
possibly be any case in which one’s strength is
insufficient I have not seen it. . . . Could we
conquer the lower self and turn to what is right
for one day, all mankind would turn to love.”

What has the Christian to add to such exalted
sentiments ? I conceive that he has this to say :
“ We have record of a life that was actually lived
in this spirit, and this life reveals to us the meaning
of the whole universe. Its power continues still.
We bring you news of that which fulfils the loftiest
dreams of your sages.” If this be true, the West
can bring to China what, as she receives it in her
own way, will help her beyond anything else to
achieve the deepest purpose of her own inner striving.
She will not be turned from her Tao or inner nature,
she will be given the power to fulfil it in a new and
larger way.

5. The West should stand ready to give her help to
Ohina in such ways as China may herself seek for it.
While I believe that harm may be done by thrusting
upon China our political or commercial assistance,
it seems certain that there will be a number of specific
ways in which Chinese will ask for Western help,

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 249

and should receive it. Instances of this I have already
referred to in the case of political advisers, educational
experts, and so forth. A* further illustration is that
of capital for the development of industries, building
railways and so forth. The principle of the Inter-
national Consortium seems to be a good one, and
I think there is a disposition now on the part of
foreign capitalists to deal generously with China
if she seriously undertakes the task of financial
reconstruction. In schools and colleges foreign
instructors are sought, and these should be prepared
to work under Chinese principals and in accordance
with Chinese ideas. In mission undertakings the
same is true. These are being increasingly guided
by Christian Chinese, and in a number of cases
foreigners are now accepting positions under a Chinese
committee or individual. It is absurd to suppose
that because a man or woman comes from abroad
he is therefore competent to control senior workers
who are natives of the country. The Chinese leader-
ship in the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. is now assured,
and a number of the missions are taking steps in
the same direction. The Chinese Christians are
anxious still to have the help and counsel of foreigners,
but they demand a large share of the control, and this
demand cannot be set aside. China must judge for
herself in what ways the West can best helj) her.

We have looked at some pages in the long story
of China's intercourse with other nations. We have
done little more than scan the salient points. As I
said at the beginning, I have not attempted a detailed
treatment, but have rather sought to give a poTnt
of view from which to look more deeply into the
problem, and to create an attitude of mind which
may help in the formation of right judgments. I
recognize that the subjects have been too vast and

260 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

intricate for a-dequate handling. I hope, therefore,
that I may leave my readers with a taste for more,
with a determination, in * fact, to become better
acquainted with China and with the Chinese, and
to use their influence towards creating a juster sense
<of what China is and may become, and of what we
in the West owe to her. Above all I hope that we
may have caught some glimpse of the glory that
China may become. Drawing from her native wells
that penetrating idea of life that is based on main-
taining true relationships with all one’s fellows, and
mingling it with those streams of living water which
flow from the Master Personality of our Mediter-
ranean: civilization, who can guess what China may
yet discover and give to the thirsty peoples of the
West ? When Luther and Erasmus were re -discovering
the meaning of personal religion and the essentially
peaceable character of the Christian Gospel, the
Chinese philosopher Wang Yang Ming was promul-
gating the idea of the investigation of things and
showing how by following the intuitive faculty or
inner light, man might rise to his true destiny and
shake off the shackles of past tradition. The Reformers
in Europe found prepared ground, and their doctrines
spread like wildfire and sowed the seeds of many a
revolution in thought and government. The Chinese
philosopher was like a voice crying in the wilderness.
But his spiritual heirs are with us to-day. As they
proclaim the gospel of personal freedom and universal
peace, they find many ready to hear and receive.
The new China is arising before our eyes. We of the
West hold this terrible power that by our misguided
policies, by our materialism and self-seeking, even
by our indifference, we may distort this movement
of life, and instead of our finding the young hero
arising in his strength to join in the onslaught upon
ignorance and crime and disease, we may see, through

CHINA’S GIFT TO THE WORLD 251

our acts, a monster turning his new-found strength
against us and all that we stand for. Even to think
of such a possibility is almost an outrage on China.
But knowing what we have done in the hundred
years that are just behind us we have no right to
assume that we shall not create the Yellow Peril
we talk about. Apart from our action there is and
can be no such thing. Rather let China be welcomed
into the family of nations ; let us show her that we
want her, and that we are prepared to treat her
as a member of the family ; let ms give her justice
and friendship, respect and sympathy, and the
Yellow Peril will be transmuted into the Golden
Dawn. China will come as a chief partner ift turring
into a reality her own dream of more than two
thousand years ago : “ Under Heaven there is but
one Family.’’

BIBLIOGRAPHY

In the following suggestions for further reading no attempt
has been made to give a complete bibliography. Books are
chosen nuxinly with a view to the general r coder, The
student will have access to fuller bibliographies.

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER^^I

Chinese Characteristics t by Arthur H. Smith. (Oliphants.)

Books of Travel in China which give a sympathetic picture
of Chinese life and character, such as The Yangtse Valley
and Beyond, by Mrs. Bishop, etc., etc.

Village and Town Life in China, by Y. K. Leong and L. K.
Tao. (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.)

Men and Manners in Modern China, by J. MacGowan.
(Unwin.)

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER II

Religion in China, by J. Edkins. (Kegan Paul.) [Chapter II
for account of Ancient Sacrifices on Altar of Heaven.]

Village Life in China, by A. H. Smith. (Oliphants.)

Chinese Proverbs, by A. H. Smith. (Kegan Paul.)

The Confucian Classics, Translations by J. Legge. (Kegan
Paul.) * ^

An Introduction to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art, by
H. A. Giles. (Quaritch.)

A History of Chinese Literature, by H. A. Giles. (Heinemann.)
The Original Religion of the Chinese, by J ohn Ross. ( Oliphants. )

253

254 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER III

Outlines of Chinese History ^ by^Li Ung Bing. (Commercial
Press, Shanghai.)

A Sketch of Chinese History, by F. L. Hawks-Pott. (Kelly &
Walsh, Shanghai.)

Annals of the Court of Peking, by E. Backhouse and
J. O. P. Bland. (Heinernann.)

TJie Nestorian Monument in China, by P. Y. Saeki. (S.P.C.K.)
China Year Book 1921-2 (Chapter XII).

Studies in Chinese Religion, by E. H. Parker. (Chapman
Hall.)

China, Her History, Diplomacy and Commerce, by E. H.
« ParE^'. . ( M ur ray . )

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER IV

The Foreign Relations of China, by M. J. Bau. (Nisbet.)

China Under the Empress-Dowager, by J. O. P. Bland and
E. Backhouse. (Heinernann.)

China, Her History, Diplomacy and Commerce, by E. H.
Parker. ( Murray. )

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER V

Modern China : A Political Study, by S. G. Chong. (Oxford
University Press. )

China Year Book 1921-2 (Chapter XXX).

Recent Events and Present Policies in China, by J. O. P.
Bland. (Heinernann.)

China Awakened, by M. T. Z, Tyau. (Macmillan.)

i

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTERS VI AND VII

Korea's Fight for Freedom, by F. A. McKenzie. (Siinpkin,
Marshall.) <

BIBLIOGRAPHY 255

The Case of Korea, by Henry Chung. (George Allen & Unwin,
Ltd.)

Peking, a Social Survey, by Sidhey D. Gamble. (Milford.) 21/-.

The Foreign Relations of China, by M. J. Ban. (Nisbet.) 18/*.

Democracy and the Eastern Question, by T. F. Millard. (George
Allen & Unwin, Ltd.)

China, Captive or Free, by Gilbert Reid. (George Allen &
Unwin, Ltd.)

Modem China : A Political Study (Chap. IX), by S. G.
Cheng. (Oxford University Press.)*

The Invention of a New Religion, by Basil Hall Chamberlain.
(Watts & Co.)

The Far Eastern Question in its Geographical Setting, by Percy
M. Roxby. (The Geograpliical Association, Marine
Terrace, Aberystwyth.)

The Imperial Drug Trade, by Joshua Rowntree. (Methuen.)

The War Against Opium. (International Anti -Opium Asso-
ciation, Peking, and Marshall Bros., London.)

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER VIII

The International Development of China, by Sun Yat Sen.
(Commercial Press, China.)

The Christian Occupation of China, Part I, pp. 20-27.

The China Year Book 1921-2 (Chapters IX, X, XVII and
XXV).

China Awakened, by M. T. Z. Tyau (Chapters XI, XII
and XIII). (Student Christian Movement.).

Village and Town Life in China, by Leong and Tao. (George
Allen & Unwin, Ltd.)

The Guilds of China, by H. B. Morse. (Out of print.) (Long-
mans.)

256 CHINA IN THE PaMiLY OF NATIONS

FURTHER READING ON CHAPTER X

China Awakened, by M. T. Z. Tyau, (Student Christian
Movement.)

China To-day Through Chinese Eyes, by various Chinese
authors. (Student Cliristian Movement.) 2/6.

Th^ Problem of China, by Bertrand Russell. (George Allen &
Unwin, Ltd.) 7/6.

The Student World (Magazine) 1922. Article by Dr. de Vargas.
(Student Christian Movement.) '

INDEX

Africa, 247

Agriciilture, 176, 180, 187, 239
Altar of Heaveii, 33-4
America. See United States
Central America, 230
Amoy, 49, 51, 59
Amritsar, 104
Analecta t The^ 28, 198, 214
Ancestor worship, 43
Anglo -Japanese Alliance, 108,
134, 163, 165
Anthrax, 187

Anti-Christian Society, The, 222
Antimony, 181
An Fu party, 87
Arab traders, 45
Architecture, Chinese, 27
Arkwright, Richard, 49
Art, Chinese, 24 et seq., 197,
216-17

Australia, 17, 135, 136

Backhouse and Bland, Annals oj
the Court of Peking, 53
Bau, M. J., The Foreign Rela-
tions of China, 134, 146, 165
Belgian railway syndicate, 67,
131

Bell, Mr., 51

Bible, The, 30, 206, 221

Old and Now Testaments, 222
The Gospels, 248
Black Dragon Society, The, 138
Bland and Backhouse, China
Under the Empress -Dowager,
71-2

Bland, J. O. P., Recent Events
and Present Policies in
China, 59, 127

Blythe, Mr., Saturday Evening
Post, 113
Bokhara, 42

Bol8ho\dsm, 109-70, 190, 211
Book of Changes, The, 233
Borneo, 17
Bourbons, 190

Boxer rising, The, 43, 68, 69,
70-3, 163, 201
Boycotts —

Anti -Japanese, 117, 149
Anti-U.S.A., 163
Economic, 175 ’ •

Brigands (bandits), 90, 106, 129,
179, 236, 240
Buddhism —

Begimiings of, 41
Buddhist jjanlheon, 34
Infiuenee on China, 54, 231 i
Northern form in China, 43
Persecution, 43
Success of, 43

Translations of writings, 42
Bumiah, N. and S., 64

Cabinet, the, 95, 159
Canada, 17, 135

Canton, 45, 46, 51, 59, 88, 90-1,
93

Cattle and sheep breeding, 187
Chamberlain, Basil Hall, The
Invention of a New Religion,
101

Chambers of Commerce, 80, 159,
235

Chang Chih Tung, 65, 68
Chang Po Ling, !>., 159
Chefoo, 48

Ch’en Ch’ung Ming, 92-3
Cheng, S. G. —

Modern China, 80, 85
Opinions quoted, 89
Chengtu, 168, 205
Ch’ien Lung, 50, 65, 69
Ch’ien Yuan Tung, 221-2
257

258 CHINA IN THE FASliLY OF NATIONS

China —

Ancient civilization, 37, 197,

asi

Beginnings of foreign influ-
ence, 41

Beset by foreign Powers, 227
Civil authority should be freed
from military domination,
96, 229, 235
Colonization, 18, 88
Condition cause of anxiety to
world, 99, 137, 196, 211,
225

Culture, 23

Driven to militarism,* 131, 229
Early currency, 47
Economic relations wdth
"West —

, Advan»*ages possessed by
foreign capitalists, 189
Competition in trade, 151,
164

Financial penetration, 118
et seq.

Forced open by sword, 56
Trade not wanted, 57, 121,
143

Trade relations, 64-5
Emigration, 17, 187
Exports —

Tea, silk, oil, oilcake, oil
seeds, skins, furs, 149
Foreign approach always self-
seeking, 64, 151, 242
Foreign intervention, 97, 243
Genius of, 33, 190
Gift to the world, 234, 243,
250

Imports —

Opium, tobacco, cotton
goods, machinery, hard-
ware, iron goods, 149
Machinery, dyes, drugs, 150
Jnfluenoe of Greece and Rome,
44, 219

Internal mental and spiritual
changes, 197

Internal political changes, 79
Internal social changes, 187
International question^*' faced,

161

China {continued ) —

International relations threat-
ened, 152

* Loans to China, 84, 123

To responsible Government
only, 130, 154, 191
How money was spent, 160
Security for interest on
loans, 120

Still requires financial help,
97, 145

Local self-goveinment, 79
Looking to West for help, 210,
248

M an uf ac tu res —

Silk, oilcake, etc., 149
Yam, 151, 185
China, 177
Various, 183
Military council, 95
Military dictatorship, 86-7
Military relations with West,
56, 62, 143. See Wars
Navy reorganized under
British guidance, 64
Need of modem army and
navy, 210

North and South, 87 et seq.

I Crisis between, 113

Northern party, 87, 88, 159
Southern party, 86, 88, 90-1,
159, 234
Union of, 83
Origin of name, 41
Outstanding needs of China —
A well thought-out indus-
trial system, 238
Better system of communi-
cations, 239

Higher moral standards in
her public men, 237
Improved educational sys-
tem, 240

Reorganized judicial system,
241

Strong c onstitutional
government, 234
Outstanding qualities of
nation —

Adaptability, 22, 195, 239
Capability, 150

INDEX 259

Ghina (continued ) —

Outatanding qualities of
nation (continued ) —
Conservatism, 62, 201, 209*
Contentment, 178, 232
Endurance, 22
Fairmindedriess, 60
Good sense, 195, 239
Honesty and integrity in
business, 19, 193, 237
Industry, 22

Patience, 20, 144, 189, 195,
214 ''

Peaceableness, 22, 40,

54, 166, 189, 195, 214,
229

Reasonableness, 21
Resourcefulness, 22
Reverence for learning, 22,
201-2

Shrewdness, 147
Social sense, 214-15
Tolerance, 54, 155
Own internal weakness cause
of trouble, 67, 73, 90, 99,
143, 210, 236-7

Pitfalls of materialism and
militarism, 160
Population, 16-7, 176, 187
Possessions ceded to Foreign
Powers, 69, 64
Relations with —

Portugal, 49
Spain, 49
Holland, 49
Pvussia, 60
England, 52
Franco, 61
Japan, 100 et seq.

Religious and cultural Eispects
of relations with the West,
56

System of selecting officials,
79, 202-3

Victim of jealous Foreign
Powers, 97

West should give China —
Time to work out her own
salvation, 243

A more sympathetic under-
standing, 244

China (continued ) —

West should give China
(continued ) —

Absolute fair play, 245
A chance to see the best of
the West, 246

Help as China herself asks
for it, 248

China Year Book, 183
Chinese Recorder, 222
Ch’in and Ch’u, 39
Ch’ing-teh-chen, 177
Ch’in Shih Hwangti, 40, 41, 47
Christianity, introduction of, 45
Christian Occupation of China,
The, 168, 188
Chu Hsi, 198
Chiiin Tsi, 214
Chung King, 179 ,

Church, the Christian, in Cliina,
158, 160, 161-2, 223. 238
Cinemas, 244-5
Class war, the —

Causes of, 193
Dangers of, 171
How to avoid, 189
Hoad to emancipation, 196
Clemoncoau, M., 144
Cochin China, 44, 64
Columbia University, 209
Columbus, 84
Commentaries, 198
Commercial Press, the, 194
Concessions, 119, 146, 242
Confucius, 27, 28, 38, 41, 202,
248

Consortium, 122-3, 144, 163-4,
167, 191, 228, 249
Constitution, the —

Provisional constitution, 94-5
Adoption of urgently needed,
98-9

Constitutional government,
234 * ^

Consular jurisdiction, 146
Cornell University, 209
“ Correct Meaning, The,” 198
Council of Five, 147

Damocles, 111
Denationalization, 227-9

260 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Denmark, 158

Dishonest ofiicials, 64, 83, 87, 96,
210, 214, 228, 236, 237
Disintegration, 227-8
Donald, W. H., 113
Dutch help asked for, 61
Dynasties —

Ch’in, 40, 79
Chou, 38, 40
Han, 42

Manchu, 19-20, 50, 54, 60, 66,
82, 86, 95, 143, 190, 197-8,
211 227

Ming, 48, 49, 60, 198
Mongol, 47 ♦

Table of, 36
T’ang, 30, 45, 46, 48
Tang and Sung, 24, 198

East India Company, 51
Economic imperialism, 118
Education —

Adult education, 97-8
Education for citizenship, 97
Modem education, 68
Missionary education. See
Missions

Public lectures, 205, 217, 246.
See Student body
Educational associations, 80,
169, 204, 205, 235
Elder Statesmen (Genro), 100, 139
Emperor worship, 101, 125, 137
Emperors —

Ch’ien Lung, 60
Ch’in Shih Hwangti, 40, 41, 47
Hsiang Hsu, 38-9
Hsieh Ho, 24
Hsiian Tang, 81, 83
Hsii Fu, 48
K’ang Hsi, 50, 51
Kuang Hsii, 68, 69, 70, 71,
72, 81, 201

I^iblai Klian,* 47, 48, 88, 232

Ming Ti, 42

Ta Chin, 44

Tai Tsung, 45

Wang An Shih, 46

Wan Li, 60

Wu Ti, 42

Yao and Shun, 37, 68

Empress-Dowager (Tsii Hsi), 66,
67, 69, 71, 72, 81, 83, 201
Empress -Dowager (Limg Yii), 83
England. See Great Britain
Envoys, foreign, captured and
tortured, 61
Erasmus, 250
Exclusion policy, 135, 163
Experiments, 182, 184, 193-4,
205, 239

Extraterritoriality, 119, 144,

146, 146, 169,^241-2

Face-saving, 83, 94, 108
Factories, 149, 150-1, 171, 183
seq.y 192-3, 216
Factory laws, 184, 185, 192
Family life, 31-2
Family system, 79-80, 172-3,
176, 178, 188, 192-3, 202,
212-13, 218

Farquliar, J. N., Modern Re-
ligious Movements in Indian
223

Federated parliament, 236
Federated provinces, 234
Feng Kuo Chang, 86
Feudal system, 40
Fiume, 131
“ Five Relations,” 33
Foochow, 59

Foreign controlled services, 87,
120, 166, 246
Customs, 121, 166
Diplomatic service, 244
Post Office, the, 121, 179, 204
Salt Gabelle, the, 121, 176,
177-8

Formosa, 49, 64, 74, 129,fl35,
136, 179

Four Power Pact, the, 145
France —

War with China, 64
Gains political and commercial
advantages, 66

Receives Port of Kuang-
Chow-Wan, 67

Sphere of influence, Soutnem
provinces, 67

China’s attitude to France,
167-8

INDEX

261

France {continued ) —

Chinese labourers in France,
210

Fukien, 48, 67, 129, 135 *

Gambling, 242
Gandhi, 32, 179
G^ Ming, 233
Geneva, 40

Genro. See Elder Statesmen
George III, 62-3
George, D. Lloyd, 144
Germany, 66, 108-9, 111 ci seq.^
138, 147, 158, 168-9
Youth Movement, 213
Golden Age, the, 37
Golden Dawn, the, 250
Gordon, General, 60
Government Higher National
College, 217

Graft, 93, 96, 98, 237. See
Dishonest officials
Great Britain, 57, 58, 61, 66, 67,
82, 101, 114, 119,127, 131-2
134, 136, 161, 154, 164,

165 et seq., 169, 181, 228
Great Learning, the, 30, 173
Great Wall, the, 40-1, 73
Great War, the, 103, 108, 111,
138, 146, 168, 210
Guilds, 32, 80, 174-5, 178, 188,
192, 193, 236

Hankow, 67, 82, 150, 168, 180
Hanyehping Iron Company, 109,
182

Hara, Premier, 139
Harrison, Miss Agatha, 186
Hart, Sir Robert, 166, 246
Hayashi, Count, 134
Hay, Mr. John, 121
Hobson, J. A., Life of CobdeUy
127

Hodgkin, H. T., The Christian
•* Revolution, 184
Home industries, 171, 176, 178,
239

Hong Kong, 91
Hospitals, 156, 168, 246
Hsiang Hsu, 38-9
Hsiang-nu, 41, 42

Hsieh Ho, 24

Hsii Ching Ch’eng, 72

Hsii Fu, 48

Hsii Shih Ch’ang, 86

Hubbard, The Fate of Empires^

Hupeh, 176
Hu Shih, Dr., 209
Hwei-kuan, 174

Imperial edicts, 68, 83, 201
Indemnities —

Boxer indemnity, 71, 163, 165,
168

Opiifin indemnity, 59
Taiping indemnity, 61
Industrial self-government, 193,
229, 239

India — *

Mission sent to India, 42
Indian monks’ influence, 43
Indian ideas influence China,
43-4

Knowledge of Indian affairs,
92

Indo-Chinese opium traffic,
127, 166

India and Korea compared,
136

British policy matched, 167
Difference between Cliina and
India, 190

Internationalism, 216
International service, 241
International Development
Scheme, 191, 192
International Labour Standard,
161, 192

Ireland, 107, 129
Ishii, Viscount, 108, 115
Islam, 45
Italy, 67, 131

Japan —

Accepts policy of Open Door,
122, 134

Aggression of Japan feared
and resented, 125, 161, 216
Ajmy organized by Germany,
64, 101

262 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Japan {continued ) —

Capable leadership, 65, 100,
139

Case for Japan, the, 135 et aeq.
Champion of East against
West, 76

China’s condition menace to,
137

Colonists, 136

Demoralization of China by
Japan —

Opium and morphia, 127-8
Prostitutes, 128
Protection of wrongdoers,
129

Secret encouragement of
internal strife, 130, 137
Diet, the, 107

E«rly Chinese influenco in
Japan, 48

Efforts to substitute civil for
military control, 139
Hailed as deliverer of China,
76-7, 134

Threw away her chance, 76,

100 , 102

Imperial University, 141
Japanese hegemony, a, 137
Japanese imperialism —

A policy of self-defence,
100-1

Policy indefensible, 102-3
Economic imperialism, 118,
125-6, 228

Imperialist policy, 137
Trend of industrial develop-
ment, 105

Moral revulsion of China,
210

Extreme nationalism, 229
Labour Movement, 195
Meiji Era, 101

Navy built up by England,
liOl

Present position between
Japan and China, 134 tt
Htq.

Press closely watched and
censored, 141

Progressive leaders and their
policy, 140-1

Japan {continued ) —

Reasons for entry into Great
. War, 108

Japanese regime in Korea,
103 et seq.

Special envoy sent to United
States, 115

Two Japans, 103, 138
Westernizing of Japan, th®,
101, 229

Jesuits, 50, 51, 61
Jesus Christ, 221, .•223-4, 246-7,
250

John’s University, St., 158
Jordan, Sir John N., 166

K’ang Hsi, 50, 51
K’ang Yu Wei, 68
Kansu, Moslem influence, 45
Kioochow’, 66
Kobe, 141

Koo, Dr. Wellington, 148
Korea, 46, 48, 49, 64, 65, 73-5,
100, 103 et seq., 134-5, 136
Korean proclamation of Inde-
pendence, 105
Kowloon, 146
Kuang Chow Wan, 67
Kang Hsu, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 81,
201

Kublai Khan, 47, 48, 88, 232
Kuo-ming-tang, 85
Kwang Yin, 43

Lal)Our conditions, 117, 178, 183
ci aeq.

Good conditions necessary,
193

How to improve them, 189,
190

Labour organizations, 188, 189

La Jcuncsse (Sliing Tsin Nien),
212

Language, the Chinese, 27-8,
205 et aeq., 209, 232, 240
Bei Hwa, 207, 209
Dialects, 208
Ideographs, 27, 208
Kuo Yii, 207
Mandarin, 208

INDEX

Language {continued ) —

Phonetic script, 208-9
Syllabary, 44
Wenli, 206, 208
Lansing, Mr., 115-16, 131
Lansing-Ishii Agreement, 116
Lao Tze, 29
lioadership — >

Creation of leaders, 98, 158,
160, 164, 200
Lack of, 65, 96, 193
League of Nations, 128, 131,
144, 14r, 245
The earliest League, 38
Lectures, public, 205, 217, 246
Legge, J., Confucian Classics,
the, 198
“ Li,” 21

Liang Chi Ch’ao, 68
Liaotimg Peninsula, 74, 75
Li Hung Chang, 65
Literature, 27

Classics, 28, 30, 198, 202, 206,
214

History, 31, 201-2
Novel and drama, 47, 206
Poetry, 30-1

Literati (scholars), 40, 198,

201-3, 232

Literary revival, 197 8, 199,
204-5, 212, 216

Li Ung Bing, Outlines of Chinese
History, 53

Lin, Commissioner, 58
Liu Chiu Islands, 64
Li Yuen Hung, 82, 85, 89, 96
Livy, 237
Loans —

Crisp loan, 123
Foreign loan, 84
Japanese loans, 123. See Con-
sortium
London, 233
Luther, Martin, 250

Macao, 49

Macartney, Lord, 52, 57
Machinery, introduction of,
178-9

Mackenzie, The Wonderful Cen-
tury, 199

263

Madagascar, French action
104

Makino, Baron, 144
Manchus. See Dynasties
Manchuria, 51, 65, 67, 74-6, 109,

122, 123, 125, 131, 130, 163,
181, 187

Manhood suffrage, 174
Manila, 49
Maon Se-ho, 198
Marcus Aurelius, 44
Margary, Mr., 63
Massacre by Spaniards, 49
Maxim, Hiram, 49
Mazzinj, Guiseppe, 233
Mean, Doctrine of the, 33
Meh Tze, 29, 247
Mencius, 29, 32, 41, 79, 214, 248
Mikado, the, 139 ,

Millard, T. F.—

Democracy and the Eastern
Question, 101

Saturday Evening Post, 112,

123, 126, 128
Conversation with, 114

Mines, 181

Nationalization, 182
Mining, 180, 181
Mining rights yielded, 66, 181
Mineral resources, 180, 181
Ming Ti, 42
Missions —

Missionaries attacked, 69
Missionaries killed, 63, 70, 166
Missionary contacts, 165 et seq.
Missionary education, 98, 166,
158, 164, 199, 213, 223, 247,
249,

Missionary failure, 166-7, 217,
225, 246

Missionary movement and its
inspiration, 157
Protestant missionaries, 165-6
Koman Catholic missionaries,
62, 63, 155, 167 '

Missionary movement as a fac-
tor, the —

In international understand-
ing, 144, 157

In encouraging Chinese leader-
ship, 168

264 CHINA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS

Missionary movement (oont.)—
In solving industrial problems,
195

In initiating progressive move-
ments, 199

In pioneering language reform,
206

In the discovery of personal
values, 213

In giving our best to China, 246
Modem research methods adop-
ted, 187

Mohammedanism, 45
Mongolia, Eastern Inner, 109,
123, 154, 187
Morphia, 127-8
Morrison, Robert, 199
Morrison, Dr., 113
Moscow, mission to, 51, 115
Mot5no, Viscount, 112, 12G
Moukden, 18

Nankai College, 1 59
Nanking, 83, 89, 159
Nan Tung Chow, 182
National Christian Conference,
the, 168, 160, 223
National University (Peking),
209

Nestorian tablet, 45
New Thought Movement, 198,
201, 206, 209 et seq,, 230
New York, 232
Ningpo, 69

Olopun, 45

Open door policy, 121, 122, 134,
163, 163, 166, 167, 228
Opium —

First opium war, 58-9, 143
Traffic legalized, 62
Traffic hamiful, 119
Britain puts an end to her
trade in opium, 127
Japan carries on, 127
Amoimt imported, 149
Cause of ill feeling, 165-6
A grave evil, 242
Being dealt with sincerely and
thoroughly, 245
Worst side of West shown, 246

Orphanages, 156
Osaka, 141

Ownership of landjr 176, 188

c

Palaces sacked and looted —
Imperial Palace, 71
Summer Palace, 61
Pao Ting Fu, 96
Parliament, Houses of, 95, 96
Paris, 131, 147

Peace Conference, 112, 113, 114,
115, 116, 130, 147. See
under Versailles

Peking, 21, 26, 51, 62, 68, 59, 60,
61, 71, 93, 116, 145, 168,
163, 169, 217, 219, 234
P eking y Social Survey oj^ 128
Persia, 46

Pescadores, the, 64, 74
Peter the Creat, 51
Philip of Spain, 48
Philippine Islands, 17. 49, 67
Philosophy, Chinese, 28, 30, 48,
196, 201, 208, 211, 214
Port Arthur, 66, 74, 131, 146
Presidents of Chinese Republic —
List of, 78
Powers of, 95
Press, the, 204
Prime Minister, 86, 89
Profit-sharing, 177. 192, 194
Prostitution, 128, 161
Protestant Christians, 159-60
Proverbs, Chinese, 173, 251
Provincial Assemblies, 81, 85, 234
Provincial autonomy, 97
Provincial self-government, 99,
234, 236

Queen Elizabeth —

Letter to, 52
Elizabethan writers, 207

Race prejudice, 164
Railways in China —

Chinese Eastern Railway, 75
Peking to Hankow, 67
Proposed line to Szechuan, 83
Shantung railway, 159
South Manchurian Railway,
159

(INDEX

Railways in China (continmS —
Trans-Siberian Railway, 74
Woosung Railway, 179
Railways — •

More needed, 180, 239
Rights yielded, 66
Rights refused, 67
State ownership, 180
Reafforestation —

^ In Korea, 106

Needs attention in China, 187
Reform moveipents —

Reforms in education, govern-
ment and army proposed, 68
Reforms promoted, 69
Reforms cancelled, 69
Stimulus renewed, 76
Promoted by small minority,
204

Regent, the (Prince Ch’un), 81
Re -integration, 227-30
Religion of China —
Monotheistic, 34
Negative in regard to spiritual
realities, 43

No belief in a personal God, 213
Tendency to substitute a>s-
thetics, 216

Ethical teaching discounted,
241

Needs discovery of personal
God, 247.

See aZsoBuddhism,Cliristianity,
Mohammedanism
Religious persecution, 43, 63, 70
Renaissance, the, comparison of
European and Chinese, 219
et aeq.

Republic, the Chinese, 38, 70, 71,
80, 82-3, 84, 90, 125, 144,
190, 200, 210, 237
Revolution, the Chinese, 82, 85,
90, 199, 232, 250
Richard, Dr. Timothy, 199
Roads, 239
Rockhill, Minister, 21
Roman Catholic missionaries, 62,
63, 165, 167
Romanoffs, 190

Rowntree, Joshua, The Imperial
Drug Trade, 127

205

Russell, Bertrand, The Problem
of China, 53, 222
Russia —

Opens relations with China, 50
Trouble between the two
countries, 51

Gains commercial and political
advantages, 66

Takes possession of Manchu-
ria, 67

Demands and gets Port Ar-
thur, 66

Search for ice -free port, 73
Permission to build railway, 74
A d^gerous neighbour lo
Japan, 103

Opposed to open door policy,
121

Ousted in Mapchuria by
Japan, 122 *

Imperialist Russia, 167
Reasons for dislike of Russia,
169-70

Russo-Japanese War, 65, 68, 73,
75-7, 81, 101

Saghalien, 76
Saito, Baron, 106-7
Seattle, 180
Secret ballot, 85
Secret societies, 70
Seiyukai party, 139
Senate, the, 159
Scum King, 41
Shanghai, 59, 1.50, 182, 186
Shantung, 66, 103, 108 et aeq.,
131, 135, 144, 147, 168, 207
Shensi, 180
Silver, 57-8
Singapore, 18
Slavery, 161
Small industries, 176-7
Smith, Dr. Arthur H., 20-1
Village Life in China, 31 ^
Social problems, 160-1, 216
Social revolution, 191
Social service, 215, 216
Social system. See Family, the
So-^ial theory, 32
Son of Heaven, 34
South Seas, 247

26 « CHINA IN THE FAJ^ILY OF NATIONS

Soviet, the, 112, 169, 190
Spheres of influence, 66-7, 68,
126, 146, 163-4, 228
State socialism, 46-7, 191, 238
Steamer services, 179
Story-teller, the, 205
Straits Settlements, 17, 136
Strikes, 91, 190
In Japan, 91, 195
Student strike, 91, 217
Student body, the —

Believe they have something
to gain from West, 244
Bolshevism approved by, 190
Driving force of students,

209

Ensures democracy, 203
Foremost in awakening of
China, 228 |

Oradutttes of Christian insti-
tutions, 98, 168-9
Graduates of foreign univer-
sities, 113, 164

Graduates of military aca-
demy, 131

Students in United States,
164, 200

Students in Franco, 168
Students in Western schools,

210

Leaders of New Thought, 21 1
Need of dynamic, 217
Sumatra, 17

Sun Yat Sen, 82, 90 et seq.^ 236
27;c International Development
of China, 188-9, 191-2
Superstition, 180, 216, 221
Sutras, Indian, 43
Szechuan, 21, 82, 178

Ta Chin, 44

Taiping rebellion, 60-1, 89, 120
T’ai T’sung, 45, 48
Taj(Mahal, 26 *

T’ang Shao Yi, 200
Tao, the, 44, 188, 248
Tao, L. K., Village and Town
Lift in China t 173
Tariffs —

Demand for fixed tariff, 119
Tariff reform refused, 133

Tifriffs (continued ) —

Restrictions in regard to, 146
Demand for tariff autonomy,

• 162-3

Tartars, 47

Taylor, Professor, 188
Telegraph system, 179
Theodosius, 44
Three Kingdoms, the, 88
Tientsin, 67, 61, 63, 169, 168
Ting, Mr., Geological Survey of
China, 181 <

Tobacco, 149, 153
Tokyo, 107, 115, 134
Tolstoi, Count Xeo, 221
Toynbee, Arnold, The Western
Question in Greece and Tfw-
ketj, 226-7, 228-9
Treaties —

With Russia, 51
Nanking, 69
With England, 62
With Franco, 62
With Allies, 71
With Japan, 74
Between Japan and Russia, 76
Peace Treaty of Versailles,
106

CTiina refuses to sign it, 147
Treaties forced on China, 143,
152

With Austria, 148
New treaties with Germany,
168

Treaty ports —

All ports opened to trade, 61
All ports closed again, 51
Five treaty ports opened, 69
More opened, 62
Ports as trading centres, 119
Can they be given up ? 146,
178, 242

Tsusliima, Straits of, 75, 77
Tuan Chi Jui, 86-7, 89
Turkey, 228

Twenty-one demands, the, 103,
108 et seq.

Group V, 133

Tyau, M. T. Z., China Awakened^
144, 147, 182, 190
I Tzi Liu Chin, 177

NDEX

2«7

Unconscious influence of Wi^ist
on Eeist, 226-7

Unified National Policy, 235-6
United States, the {U.S.A.)» IV*
21,66, 67, 77, 102,108, 111,
112, 113, 114^16, 116, 131-2,
135, 143, 150-1. 163, 168,
163-5, 167, 169, 181, 200,

228, 244, 246

»^\jited States of China, 93
Unity, 167, 167

Valerius, Publius, 237
Valuta, the, 168-9
Vargas, Dr. Phillippe de, 219
Versailles, 106, 116, 130, 131,
132, 159, 103, 168, 207, 210.
See also under Peace Con-
ference
Viceroys, 72

Wages, table of Shanghai fac-
toiy, 185

• Wang An Shih, 46
Wang, Dr. C. T., 169
Wang Yang Ming, 260
Wan Li, 50
Wars —

First war with Britain, 67, 143
Second war with Britain, 6H, 61
War with Russia, 51
War with France, 64
War with Japan, 65, 68, 74
War with Allied troops, 70
Great War, 103, 111 et seq.,
113-14, 210. See Russo-
Japanese War

War lords (Military chiefs), 87,
90, 95, 96, 115, 204, 218,

229, 235, 236

Washington, 110, 116, 132, 133,
142, 145, 153, 169, 163, 235,

245

Waterloo, 131
Watt, James, 49
Weale, Putnam, 111

Fight for the Republic of
China, 138
Wei basin, 180
Wei Hai Wei. 66
Wells, H. G., Outline of History,
232

Wells Williams, 46
Wen, Dr. S. T., 159
Wen Yu Huei (Literary Society),.
219

Wilson, Woodrow, 105, 114, 131,
144»

Women’s Movement, the, 218
Workers’ Educational Associa-
tion, 98

Wuchang, 82 •

Wu Pei Fu, 96
Wu Ti, 42

Wu T’ing Fang, Dr., 90
Wycliffe, John, 206-7

Xavier, Francis, 201

Yangtse River, 150, 179

Yangtse Valley, 67, 82, 136

Yao and Shun, 37, 68

Yellow Peril, 251

Yellow River, 38

Yellow Sea, 48

Yon, Dr. W. W., 158

Y.M.C.A., 159, 164, 194, 248

Y.W.C.A., 164, 248

Yuan Shih Kai, 69, 70, 80, 81 ,.

82-3, 84-5, 94-5
Yuan Ch’aiig, 72
Yiich Ti, 42
Yui, Dr. David, 159
Yunnan, 67

The t*rob|em of China

By BERTRiND RUSSELL, F.R.S.

La. Cr. Svo. ^ 7/. 6 tt.

“ Few have brought to their task a more exquisite sensitiveness or »
swifter, stronger understanding .” — Dailjf Herald*

“A stimulating contribution to our understanding of these Oriental forms,
of civilization.” — Times*

The Far Eastern Republic

^iVM=^ria By HENRY* KITTREDGE
01 OlDCrid NORTON

Dmy ^z^o* 12s* 6 d.

This is the first unbiassed and authoritative account of v^hat has 4 )eeni

happening during the last four years in the Far Eastern portion of the
former Russian Empire. The author is the only foreign traveller who has
been through all the territory from Lake Baikal to the Pacific since the-
Allied troops were withdrawn. Penetrating the wall of propaganda
which has been built about this part of the world, he lived many months
with the Russians of the Far East. The result is this book — a fascinating:
description of the struggle of the peasants for independence and self*
government.

An Indiscreet Chronicle from
the Pacific by putnam weale

Author of *<The Truth About China and Japan,” etc., etc.

Dmy Svo. fFith Maps i J/,

The author has lived in China since childhood, and for more than twenty
years has held official positions of high importance ’in the Ch^iesc
Government. In 1921 he undertook a confidential mission for China,
visiting Canada, the United States and then Europe, returning finally to
Washington as one of the advisers of the Chinese Delegation at the Dis-
armament Conference. It is no exaggis^^^ion to state that Putnam Weale
knows more of the confidential secrets of Far Eastern politics than anjr
other Westerner, and in the present book he discloses many facts that'
have until this time been kept sub rosa.

The League of Nations

Its Growth, Record and Relation to British
foreign Policy

Cr, 8w, By ROTH WILLIAMS 6s.

This Book aims to give an authoritative presentment of the existing
League as an instrument issued from the play of certain kinds of public
opinion and’foreign policy during the last few years, and makes concrete
«uggestions for the perfection and use of this instrument in readjust-
ing the relations between Great Britain and the Dominions and Great
Britain, India and Egypt ; for inducing America to '^co-operate with
Europe ; for achieving full political and financial settlement between the
Allies and Germany and Russia ; and for the civilization of patriotism.

Towards International Justice

By F. N. KEEN

Barristcr-at-Law

With an Introduction by Prof. GILBERT MURRAY
€r, js. 6d.

Th6 principles underlying the League of Nations are discussed and its
■constitution and machinery described. Practical sug;;estions are made
for the fuller development of the League on lines of justice and interna-
tional law. The author was a pioneer in the League of Nations movement
and is on the Executive Committee of the League of Nations Union.

The Truth About Meso-
potamia, Palestine and Syria

By J. de V. LODER

With a Foreword by LORD ROBERT CECIL
Cr. Bvo, js. 6d*

Thjs is the first attempt yet made to deal with the recent history of
these countries as a whole and to place events in a true perspective. The
narrative is mainly concerned with the period of the war and after. The
author deals in a spirit of absolute fairness with such questions as Arab
pledges, Zionism and Mandates, which are of vital importance to British
interests, the League of Nations and the whole world. The texts of the
most important international agreements, etc., have been reproduced in
appendices.

Sir Williarp Wedderburn

and the Indian •Reform Movement

Cr. 8w. By S. K. TRATCLIFFE 6/.

$

Sir William Wedderburn was for over thirty years the most distin-
guished representative in England of the Indian Reform Party. He
was for twenty-seven years a member of the Indian Civil Service, rising
to Ijigh office in Bombay. He was a friend and devoted adherent of
Lord Ripon and laboured as a pioneer in vital measures of self-govern-
ment and rural tecoiistruction that have in later years been carried into
effect. In the ’nineties he was “Member for India” at Westminster.
This memoir gives the history of the movementfwith which he was identi-
fied, and traces Wedderburn’s work for the cause of India from the found-
ation of the Indian National Congress, through the stage of the Morley
reforms, to the war and the shaping of the Montagu Act.

Happy India

Cr.Svo. By ARNOLD LUPTON 6s.

“ If Mr. Lupton, whose book is lucid and dispassionate, can succeed
in converting, say, a thousand influential Indians to his idea, the history
of Asia will be changed.” — Nation.

The Making of Rural Europe

By HELEN DOUGLAS IRVINE

Cr. %vo. With a Foreword by G. K. CHESTERTON js. 6d,

“ No one will be able to understand European politics of the future
who has not given close attention problem discussed in this essay,

. . . This is a book to get, to read, and to read more than once .” — Daily
Herald.

International /Aspects of
Unemployment

By Prob.v WATSON KIRKCOl^NELL, M.A.

University of Manitoba

Jpr. 8pf. 6s. 6d.

No problem t®-day has greater significance than unemployment, ^his
rbook by a Canadian publicist treats the phenomenon as index to dis-
harmonies and hazards in our whole international civilization. A vigorous
premonitory plea for worl^^ co-operation.

T\xp Economics of by
U nemployment

Cr, Svo, 41.

“Combines once more the rare virtues of conciseness, clearness and
authority. . . . The book demands, by the clearness of its exposition and
the persuasiveness of its argument, the careful attention of everyone
concerned over the serious problem with which it deals .*’ — Manchester
Guardian.

Stabilisation

An Economic Policy for Producers and Consumers
By E. M. H. LLOYD

Cr. %V9. 4/. 6^.

“ A |»ook that everyone concerned in finding the solution of the present
chaos in trade and industry should study carefully.*’ — Outlook.

All prices List are net.

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LIMITED
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. I